Opening Additional Excellence Classes

The Northern district of the Ministry of Education operates schools with a heterogeneous population which includes Jews, Arabs, Druze and Bedouin students. The district’s 151 middle schools are attended by 62,000 students. In 2014, the district and the Technion partnered with the foundation to help increase the rate of high school students graduating from the advanced mathematics track from 7.6% to 10% over a period of five years. In 2018, 11.2% of students graduated the five-unit mathematics track in 12^th grade and 11.5% in 2021, compared to the national average of 15.5%.

The district believes that if they elevate the level of teaching and learning in middle school and expand the scope of excellence classes, more students will be able to pursue the five-unit track in high school. Today, fifty-five of their schools have excellence classes attended by 30% of the ninth grade students. Therefore, the Northern district approached the Branco Weiss Institute, which has led several successful programs in other districts in both middle and high school. Branco Weiss is now proposing a three-year program for the Northern district to work with 50 schools from all four education streams, which currently serve 7,468 students.

In the first year of the program, 25 excellence classes will be opened and in the second year an additional 25 classes will be opened. Each of these classes will receive two additional weekly mathematics teaching hours from the district, on top of the five weekly hours of mathematics they study. The additional two hours will be devoted to studying high-level applied mathematics, based on learning material developed via the foundation’s portfolio. In addition, each school will have the option to add two supplementary hours for high-level mathematics-based science studies.

Branco Weiss will, in collaboration with an academic institution, provide professional learning communities for 150 mathematics teachers and department heads and 25 science teachers. In the communities, the teachers will focus on applying modeling and reasoning skills aligned with the PISA 5-6 proficiency levels. Participating in the professional development will be teachers of existing excellence classes and teachers who will teach in the new classes.

In order to provide additional support, during the first year Branco Weiss will conduct instructional coaching twice a month for the teachers, department heads as well as to twelve district mathematics instructors. From the second year, these 12 instructors will continue to guide the department heads and teachers when implementing the new material. In addition, the school mathematics team will hold weekly two-hour meetings where they will discuss integration of the new tasks in the classroom, guided by the department head.

In addition, Branco Weiss will organize seminars and conferences for all the teachers and organize meetings for the district mathematics instructors where they will become familiar with the new content and learn to guide the teachers and department heads in their schools. The district will brand the new excellence classes and give them a unique name, and position them as prestigious, so that students will feel proud to join them.

The goal of the program is for 80% of the students graduating the new excellence classes to succeed on a diagnostic test, prepared by CET, which is aligned with the top 5-6 PISA proficiency levels.

* The text above shows the grant as approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors / Grant 492