Raj Kumar, AC for Bradford and North/West Leeds
Schools were invited to stimulating mathematical talks and activities at the University of Bradford and Beckfoot School designed to help students see the usefulness and fun of maths beyond the curriculum. The events were aimed at Year 8 & 9 mathematicians who may go on to study Core Maths, A level Mathematics and/or A level Further Mathematics.The day comprised of classroom-sized workshops, finishing with plenary sessions on Mathematical Magic & Maths of the Movies from inspirational speakers Zoe Griffiths and Tom Button.
Testimonials from some students:
- “Fun and creative. It challenged my brain”
- “I got to solve the Rubik’s Cube”
- “I learnt new tricks that I had never seen before. It was great and I would love to attend again”
- “The Ambassadors and presenters were helpful and explained things easily”
- “The day helped me improve my problem solving skills”
- “Gave me a new perspective to maths”
Testimonials from some teachers:
- “Excellent. All the activities were very close together”
- “It was great to see students thinking outside the box”
- “Zoe Griffiths was very engaging and it was great to see how she explained how her magic tricks worked using a diagram”
- “It was great to see how topics from Further Maths can be accessible from seeing Maths of the Movies session, e.g. use of matrices, and tansforming hidden maths into visible maths