In our “Beyond the classroom” section, have a look at what King’s pupils answered in our Census.

Some good Stats, some dodgy (deliberately!) and some with unashamedly silly overtones lie therein.

Our favourite Stat is the Percentage of pupils who put themselves in the top half of the year…

NAS

Periodically I come across a news article on Maths in schools that sets me off on a grumpy rant. I’ll try to reign it in here, but this recent article on the BBC website (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-179136490 ) was pretty special. The opening paragraph read “Maths lessons are seen as difficult, irrelevant and boring by about a third of teenagers, a survey suggests” and went on to (with little evident statistical strength) merrily slosh about the usual British stereotypes about our subject.

I wonder if the author of this lazy article ever considered opening with “Maths lessons are seen as challenging, useful & rewarding by about two thirds of teenagers” instead.

There was the usual guff about the inherent lack of usefulness of Maths (“Somehow I doubt I’ll use trigonometry anytime in the future“), “Real Life” Mathematics (as opposed to what?), a few casual (ironic?) percentages to imply that their arguments should be taken seriously and many other facepalming moments.

All the article does is show how the media perpetuate these myths- the primary cause of this phenomenon.

I’d contend that the article’s headline should have run along the lines of:

“Maths education now misperceived in record number of ways”.

Rant over.

Anyway it did allow me to reflect on how our pupils at King’s perceive Maths. We do at times encounter many of these weird British stereotypes but increasingly we are seeing these perceptions (dull, intellectual, non-applicable, useful-but-I-don’t-know-why, Maths=Numeracy etc) shunned by many of our students across the yeargroups.

As evidence, I’d happily offer our outgoing Upper Sixth Form, whose final lessons before study leave are tolling around the department before their departure next week.

We’ve had 40 pupils in Upper Sixth study A2 Mathematics this academic year with another 8 completing some form of Further Maths and they’ve embraced the subject both within and beyond their lessons. Many attended our visits to Liverpool, where a throwaway line about “Maths Parties” by Mathematical Stand-up Matt Parker was brought to life by our pupils (I tend not to ask what goes on in them just to be on the safe side). We now have students with offers from some of the strongest Mathematics university courses in the country although some of those pupils whose academic passions have led them to study other subjects have spoken with genuine melancholy of the imminent and hitherto unexplored prospect of life without learning any new Maths!

These pupils embraced and drove our series of lectures on off syllabus Mathematics and the two Further Maths groups led one terrific lecture session themselves. They even came up with names for their groups- one is named “Da Mandelbrot Set” (because “i is in da Mandelbrot set”-  for non-specialists that’s a Complex number joke and trust me, it’s a belter) and the other the “Maths Pack”- which, when they learned that I was going to reveal this in a blog, offered mildly embarrassed apologies. Their love of learning Maths has been clear to see but across the entire Upper Sixth year and in all sets we have seen hard work coupled with a genuine curiosity for and enjoyment of the study of Mathematics.

Of greatest significance is that this love of learning is not borne of wanting access to algorithms for “the real world” (although in actuality they have learned a great deal which can be transferred to a wide variety of future careers), but a desire to broaden their intellectual frontiers.

As a department we wish them every deserved success in their varied futures. Who knows- some of them might even use Trigonometry at some point.

NAS

King’s has enjoyed many successes in the UKMT Maths Challenges this academic year.

On the 8^th of November, 65 pupils from L6 and U6, took part in the individual Senior Maths Challenge.  Between them, they secured 6 Gold, 15 Silver, and 20 Bronze certificates. Sean Telford (L6NS) was awarded “Best in School” and selected to complete the British Maths Olympiad paper. Luke Howarth (U6SW) and Ryan Thompson (U6ML) were the next highest scorers and were selected to complete the Senior Kangaroo paper.

On the 9^th of November, Sean Telford (L6NS), Matthew Temple (L6KS), Fred Norman (U6SP) and Ryan Thompson (U6ML) represented King’s in the regional final of the Senior Team Maths Challenge, held at Liverpool University. They competed against 30 teams from the region and performed brilliantly,  winning the event, taking them forward to the national final in London, on the 1^st of February. Unfortunately they didn’t win the national final, but put in another superb performance.  A report on their day will follow!

On the 2^nd of February, 68 pupils from 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th year took part in the individual Intermediate Maths Challenge. Between them, they secured 13 Gold, 26 Silver and 21 Bronze certificates. Eleanor Barnard (5ET) was awarded “Best in School”. The next highest scorers were Guy Dunbavand (5PN), Peter Boothroyd (5PN), Andrew Darby (3JR), Cameron Thompson (5JM), Jack Peake (5PN) and Benjamin Cliff (3DR). All of the above were selected for further rounds in the competition. Eleanor and Peter both received Merit certificates in the Maclaurin Olympiad and Andrew Darby received a Distinction certificate in the Cayley Olympiad. Andrew also received a medal and book prize and has been invited to attend a Mathematics Masterclass event at the University of Liverpool.

On the 22^nd of February, Thomas Cuffin-Munday (3HL), Daniel Swinnock (3JR), Matthew Thompson (ShLP) and Wilf Le Brocq (ShJJ) represented King’s in the regional final of the Junior Team Maths Challenge, held at Birkenhead School. The team performed brilliantly, particularly in the cross number puzzle and team relay. They came 3^rd out of 23 schools in the region. Unfortunately this wasn’t enough to secure them a place at the national final.

On the 26^th April, 120 pupils from Removes and Shells took part in the individual Junior Maths Challenge. We await their results…

Congratulations to all pupils involved in all of the above events. More of the same next year, please.

HEB

The very best thing about Twitter is it allows you to network great ideas, fascinating atrticles, new developments and opinions.

It also, of course, allows you to pick up silly articles and puns, and the site www.spikedmath.com had a cracking example of this retweeted yesterday.

For instance: name the movie:

Mean Girls!

Featuring Lindsay Lohan as a deeply unconvincing “Mathlete”!

Anyway its Friday and all of the Fifth and Sixth formers have had a Maths test this week so see the attached powerpoint for more of these nuggets of genius and visit their website for more Maths silliness.

Removes to fourths- apologies but you may not know enough Maths yet to answer them yet!

MovieMaths

NAS

Welcome to the King’s School maths blog from the A-level further mathematicians! I thought it might be worth a mention that today the world – that’s excluding Mr Parry and anyone else who doesn’t believe in the Middle Endian date format – will celebrate Pi Day, as those in the States would write today’s date as 3.14. For the non-mathematical reader, the Greek letter π (pi) is given to the constant 3.14159…., the irrational number which crops up in a lot of seemingly unconnected maths, but is best known for its involvement in circles. You might know for example that the circumference of a circle is π times its diameter, but you might not be aware that π crops up in many unexpected infinite summations and in Euler’s beautiful formula; e^iπ+1=0.

Whilst some of the above might seem a little abstract in terms of everyday usage, I’d like to bring to your attention to some of the maths I’ve been doing in school this week. In statistics, Mr Parry has been telling us the story of his experience of learning Central Limit Theorem, something we have been studying recently. When he was taught the concept at university by a medical statistician, the lecturer shared that he and others had been using the very same theorem just that day to test a vaccine that was used to treat ill babies. Perhaps less significant but arguably more applicable in everyday life is the topic we have been learning in Decisions maths, namely Linear Programming. This is used to solve problems in a wide variety of areas including finance, management, design and resourcing, usually to minimise cost or maximise profit.

So don’t knock it till you’ve tried it I’d say; if you really think maths isn’t that great, take a look at some of the weird and wonderful stuff and of the genuinely beautiful mathematics that’s out there, and then see how you feel. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I’d like to add a quote that I feel says it all:

 Pure mathematics is the world’s best game; it is more absorbing than chess, more of a gamble than poker, and lasts longer than monopoly. It’s free, and can be played anywhere – Archimedes did it in the bathtub.  Richard J. Trudeau.

Ryan Thompson, further mathematician and maths prefect.

Some people have commented to me recently about how
being “poor at Maths” as a country seems to be a big thing currently in the
press. These stories make good copy in Britain where finding examples of: “Look!
We’re really rubbish at this!” seems to be a national pastime. But that’s
not to say that the British perception of Maths isn’t one that is out of kilter
with that of other countries, or that we shouldn’t or can’t be doing something
about it.

In today’s Times there is an entertaining range of
letters responding to a rather haughty correspondent from earlier in the week who
stated that the Maths he had learnt in Primary School was sufficient for him throughout
his varied career. One of today’s replies points out that the reduction of all
of Maths to merely Arithmetic (number skills is essentially the issue being considered
politically at present) actually perpetuates the problem. Another comments that
the paradigm of “skills required for life” should be far from the sole driver
of a good education, whilst a more cynical response notes that the “Primary Maths”
he received 50 years ago is covered in many secondary schools today!

We at King’s are committed to attacking this weird perception
of Maths as some sort of Intellectual Bran: a tasteless stodge that is good for
you so just get it down you any which way. This website is just one way in which
we intend to do this.

I could happily waffle on for hours about what Maths
means to us* but I’d rather point you towards the rest of this site. Have an
explore, although it’s early days and we’ve got much, much more to add in the
weeks & months ahead before we can
get near a full answer to this key issue.

Ultimately, however, we hope and expect it to
become a microcosm of all we love about the subject.

Here you’ll find comment, conjecture, thoughts,
ideas, puzzles, whole school projects, videos, obscure bits of awesome Maths and
more from King’s Maths pupils & teachers alike.

Welcome.

NAS

* Just ask my classes.