Before the lockdown, Year 10 students across Lincolnshire were kept busy solving maths problems against the clock, served up at Maths Feasts hosted by schools in Scunthorpe, Grimsby and Lincoln. Unfortunately, due to the Coronavirus, we had to cancel the event scheduled in Grantham.
Maths Feasts are fun educational maths challenges for students in Year 10 that are organised and delivered by the AMSP, in order to develop problem-solving and teamwork skills. The first two rounds require teams of four to solve a variety of problems, initially individually and then as a team, before finalising their answers. The third round provides information on linear programming, before challenging students to comprehend the information by applying it to a variety of different situations. The final round is the ever-popular relay round which generated tremendous enthusiasm in Lincolnshire, with one student commenting, “I have never enjoyed and been so excited about doing maths before.” That’s probably as good as it gets! All the schools seemed to really enjoy the different maths challenges, almost as much as the juice and biscuits on offer.
If reading this makes you feel hungry for some maths, you can appease your mathematical appetite by checking out the materials used at Maths Feasts on the AMSP website. These materials are free to use during the lockdown, or afterwards when we return to school. If you need any help in setting up or running a Maths Feast in your school, please contact me and I will be happy to help.
The AMSP will be running Maths Feasts again in Spring 2021.
By Dave Tuhey