Here I am going to tell you some facts about Math teaching in Russian prestigious schools.
In secondary school curriculum is usually not so hard as in most of traditional Russian schools, though there is a larger range of topics (here you can see the list). But most of problems can be solved in one-two operations.
Still, everything changes in high school. Tasks become much harder. IB and A-level math exams include 70% of material that in Russian programme is learnt only during university course. So a diligent school leaver knows more than a typical Russian freshman. By the way the same can be said about other subjects.
Staff turnover often takes place. Usually teachers stay only for several years, and sometimes – even for one-year practice, as it is a challenging task to have a Russian teaching experience, but to stay here for a long time is not so typical for foreigners. It means teachers have to demonstrate good practice results, and sometimes they simplify the curriculum so that most of the students could pass the final test. Certainly, it has nothing to do with the last years of education when there are international exams to be passed.
Students study 12 years at AAS. In other schools it usually takes 13 years to finish education.
Teachers: Mrs. Ridley (Middle school). Her favorite phrase: “I cannot read your mind, show me your work!”. Mr. Long (Middle school), Richard K.,Mr. Garret.
Teachers: Mr. Peters и Mr. Kingshort.
Usually all students are divided into groups according to their Math level. There are commonly 3-4 groups depending on the number of students. Quite a frequent problem is that it is next to impossible to move to a higher level group during the school year. Educational system is not that much flexible.
In this school students study for 11 years. At high school students either take IB programme or prepare for Unified State Exam. Several years ago math classes for IB were in Russian.
Teacher
If your child had explicit math knowledge before school changing then tasks and topics in new school can be too easy for them. Sometimes students stop solving even easy problems because of boredom. So they lose all the motivation that is hard to be renewed in high school.
If a student leaves a decent school where they were taught by a proficient teacher (e.g. Lycee №1535, Lycee №1568, School№179, etc.) they have to forget about participation at school Olympiads even if they used to take part in competitions in their previous school. There is no way they could be allowed to participate in Russian contests, as far as international schools “are not involved into Russian school system of education”.
What can be done
Last updated: 02-03-2019.