On Tuesday morning, 8S jumped on a minibus and zipped across to King’s Bruton to take part in a fantastic maths activity programme. The children were divided into mixed-ability pairs and teamed up with some superb Year 9 mathematicians. In groups of four, they spent approximately 20 minutes at each of the seven maths activity stations spread around the music centre — each one very different from the last.

At one station, they competed to unlock a series of tricky tangram puzzles. At another, they were tasked with deducing the equation for the volume of a cone using just a net, a tennis ball, and some rice. They also experimented with different frictional surfaces on a shifting incline, and designed and constructed a wide variety of three-dimensional shapes using triangles, squares, and rectangles. Next, they attempted to assemble a selection of fun wooden 3D models, searched for patterns in prisms and antiprisms, and finally, pitted their wits against a progressively more complicated series of ‘Make 24’ computational puzzles.

All in all, it was a terrifically varied set of activities that really stretched each of the teams. They rose to the challenge and competed brilliantly. It was fantastic to see them all getting stuck in and making connections between the mathematical concepts they’ve been learning in class over the past two years and some fun, real-world maths puzzles.

Insta: 8S headed to King’s Bruton for a brilliant Maths Challenge Day this week! From tangrams to cones, friction to 3D puzzles, they tackled seven hands-on stations with energy and teamwork. A fantastic way to connect classroom learning with real-world maths!