Background
I am a teacher at Greenpoint High School in the Northern Cape . The school is situated in Greenpoint in Kimberley and it is from gr. 8 to gr. 12 . Greenpoint is a coloured area and the people are very ,poor, jobless and uneducated. Most of the learners have only a single parent or are raised by the grandmother or family. Many learners are using drugs and alcohol and every one out of ten schoolgirl are pregnant. We encounter many discipline problems and not all the teachers are capable to deal with this learners. Our learner total are 920 and the teachers are 26 . The school have a teacher and classroom shortage . There are many social problems at the school and they are struggling mostly with Mathematics .
Our feeder school is the local primary school and the total of the gr. 8 learners are near 300 every year. These Gr. 8 learners are very weak in Mathematics and the class sizes are 50 and more. The Gr 9 classes are also very big and most of them pass not Mathematics at the end of the year , but been condened to Gr. 10 . Usually there are only one gr. 10, 11 and Gr.12 class for Mathematics. The passrate for Mathematics in Gr. 9 are so poor that only 10 % of the learners can do pure Mathematics , The rest of the learners should do Mathematical Literacy.
The Maths learners are not commited and only a few pass at the end of Gr. 10 .

JUSTIFICATION
When the grade 8 learners came to our school they usually struggle with Mathematics .The can`t do the basic fractions , do not even know how to use the factors and multiples . in grade 8 the learners are suppose to do know how to get the LCM and the bigests factor . When we do this in class the learners are able to do it but in a test they could not do it. Then in gr. 9 they also can do it but the same problem occurs in a test they get it wrong. In grade 9 they are usaually doing only common factor and grouping of four terms to get a common factor .I could never understand why they know how to take out the common factor of two terms but struggle with the common factor of more than two terms . Sometimes we introduce them also in Gr. 9 with the factorisation of the form x^2+bx+c. In Gr. 10 we usually revised the common factors and grouping of four terms and then we formally do the fatorisation in the form〖 x〗^2+bx+c and ax^2+bx+c. Now they had the basics of grade nine and year after year I make sure that the can factorise . I tried different approaches and test them over and over again , but in a exam or test they cannot do it .It is only a few learners that get it right in the exams. Then in Gr. 11 they are still struggling and some of them doing better with the formula but some are struggling with the simplest form of three term factorization.Then In gr.12 the learners are also struggling with the three terms . over the years I was wondering what am I doing wrong and why cant my learners not do well in the question on factorisation . They usually loose marks in following questions : solving for x , calculus , functions and even in trigonometry because they can not factorize. I therefor will like to do the reseach on how to teach learners factorisation from gr. 8 to gr. 11.
If the learners can factorise well in al the grades our passrate will definitely increase in Mathematics. More of our learners can than pass Maths and this will also increase their AP score for university acceptance. Some of the learners can become Maths teachers, Chartered Acountants , Docters and engineers in the future because of the increased Maths marks and one day they can come back to help with the uplifting of their community.
At the end more of the learners could take Maths in Gr. 10 and even helped the learners in the GET band.