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Inviting schools from across the county, Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form’s Outreach programme has been a huge success! 43 Year 5 pupils from 17 schools across Norfolk have been taking part in the sessions held at the Inspiration Trust Centre for Education and Teaching School Hub on Hall Road, Norwich.

Our masterclasses aim to further develop a love of mathematics and curiosity in the subject for our pupils. Nurturing an interest in mathematics from a young age can give pupils the confidence to pursue this subject and for some even build a career out of it.

Tom Marjoram, Maths Standards Lead for KS5 said:

“It is a great opportunity for the Year 5 pupils to attend our sessions and develop their love and interest in maths. We are immensely proud of the effort we have made in creating these opportunities and bringing them to as many schools across Norfolk as we can. The sixth formers from Sir Isaac Newton have created excellent sessions and it is wonderful to see the primary students so enthusiastic about these. Hopefully, the pupils that take part in these sessions will be inspired to continue studying maths and become mathematicians themselves in the future.”

In the first session, we were joined by Alison from the Royal Institution to deliver a session based on the National Lottery, our pupils looked at probability and familiarised themselves with the binomial coefficient whilst exploring different sequences to work out the probability of matching with the winning lottery numbers. 

Bringing together different schools at our masterclasses has allowed us to explore maths with them which often wouldn’t be possible in a traditional classroom. In one of our sessions pupils were tasked with designing a parachute to keep an egg safe after it was dropped from a height, many of the creations varied in size, shape and unfortunately for some, efficacy.

Further sessions were delivered by our Year 12 students from Sir Isaac Newton Sixth Form. It is a brilliant opportunity for them to use their maths skills to design and create their own inspiring sessions. We saw sessions on hexaflexagons, sequences and maths puzzles.

This week in the final session, our pupils had another student-led session with Year 12 students taking the lead. The pupils were tasked with exploring the game of chess and developing their problem-solving skills to answer questions such as the knight’s tour. The students had to use mathematical skills at a much higher level than they would be expected at their age.

The feedback from the primary school students has been extremely positive, including repeated references to how “amazing” and “fun” they had found the sessions. Other comments included that participants “loved learning new things and meeting new people” and that this year’s programme was the “best event [they’ve] ever been to”. Overall, pupils unanimously agreed that they weren’t ready for the series to end and would “definitely be willing to come here again”.

Being able to offer these sessions for our wider community ensures that as many pupils as possible have the opportunity to pursue a love of mathematics. These sessions act as inspiration for the pupils to continue studying maths and a catalyst for careers as future mathematicians.