MATHS: THE YEAR SO FAR
Abbey Gate College Mathematics Department – the last 12 months:

January 2009:
Very encouraging Year 11 module results from the November exams.
Year 6 enjoy creating 3D shapes from spaghetti and jelly babies and exploring their properties and Euler’s formula as part of their taster day.
Year 11 pupils discover better ways of finding lines of best fit than “ruler wiggling”, use mathematics to model projectiles including bananas, find out how mathematics can be used to plan postal routes and explore the world of imaginary numbers on their taster day.

February:
Years 10 and 11 participate in the Intermediate Maths Challenge gaining 2 Gold awards (Sylvie Christian and Finlay Pilkington, both Year 10), 6 Silver and 6 Bronze.
Years 11 to 13 attend the Maths Inspiration lectures at the Liverpool Playhouse and listen to 3 entertaining lectures on the Maths of the Rock Guitar, Maths inside the Computer and How to Cheat at Mindreading.

March:
Year 10 pupils take their first GCSE module.
Encouraging AS/A2 January module results augur well for the summer.
Pupils celebrate World Pi Day on March 14th (3/14) with pi orientated activities and copious helpings of pie. Saadiyah Fennell’s pi wordsearch is the winning activity.

April:
Year 7 and 8 participate in the Junior Maths Challenge gaining 1 Gold award (Nicholas Bradley of Year 8), 6 Silver and 10 Bronze.  A special mention must be given to Tom Gideonse, a gifted mathematician from Year 6, who also gained a Silver award (missing a Gold by one mark). This was an exceptional achievement!

May:
A team from Abbey Gate competed in the Junior Team Challenge regional finals. Our team of two Year 9 pupils Georgia Makin-Hughes and Poppy Parker and two Year 8 pupils Nicholas Bradley and Nathan Davies acquitted themselves well during a very enjoyable day. Their mathematical challenges included number crosswords and relays (maths and running!).

June:
GCSE and AS/A2 exams are in full swing.
Numbers Rule! Mathematics club starts at lunchtimes. Aimed at KS3 pupils, its name is taken from Pythagoras’ adage that “numbers rule the universe”. So far, the club has looked at a variety of topics including the famous Monty Hall problem and traversable graphs with the aim of enriching pupils’ understanding of mathematics and challenging them to see many of the subject’s real world applications.

July:
The inaugural Fun Maths road show takes place in the Sports Hall. For 45 minutes each, Year 7, 8 and 9 try to crack numerous challenging hands-on problems and enjoy themselves greatly.

August:
Strong AS/A2 results and we bid farewell to Alex Mathews and Mike Evans who leave to study Mathematics at university (Bristol and Durham respectively).
The GCSE results also include some outstanding success – 98.2% A* to C grades with 8 A* and 17 A grades. The Year 10 module results also show lots of promise with 2 pupils (Liam Moses and Ceri Profitt) gaining 100% across the two modules, with a number of others gaining percentages in the high 90s.

September:
The term starts with the biggest ever AS Further Mathematics group and the largest AS Mathematics group for some years. In addition, 9 Year 11 pupils opt to study a Free Standing Maths Qualification in Additional Mathematics and another 6 opt to study GCSE Statistics.
The KS4 Famous Numbers poster competition is won by Edmund Le Brocq with an inventive poster on Ramanujan’s number 1729. Peter Edge’s googol poster and Caroline Powers light speed for dummies poster receive honourable mention.
The KS3 Favourite Numbers poster competition produces an array of entertaining posters, but is eventually won by Ned Maddocks (whose favourite number is 23, inspired by Liverpool’s Jamie Carragher) with Edward Hockedy (72) and Dan Boden (9) as the runners up.

October:
A group of AS & A Level mathematicians and Year 11 GCSE Statistics pupils attend an insightful lecture on the use of Statistics in the media, by Cambridge professor David Spiegelhalter at Liverpool university.

November:
With the Lower Sixth pupils at Glaramara for team building exercises, there is a smaller entry than last year for the Senior Team Maths Challenge.  William Hockedy gains a Silver award, with Adam Khan attaining a Bronze.
Unfortunately, our Senior Team is unable to match its feat of fourth place in the Regional Finals, as we have to withdraw as two members of the team are ill on the day.
Year 10 pupils sit their first module exam.

December:
NSPCC Number Day is celebrated in the college on Friday 4th December.  Helen Redman, the NSPCC schools co-ordinator for the North West begins the day with a thought provoking assembly.  During the day, the pupils raise money in a variety of ways including sponsored sums in lessons, dressing in number themed outfits, number karaoke and Weakest Link (the Maths version) at lunchtime and 2 quizzes during the day. The event raised about £1300.
Notable mentions go to: Dan Boden & Max Clements for winning the Prime Suspects quiz.
Joe Wardle for winning the Teacher Sums quiz.
Toby Reid, Harry Balmer and James Fairclough for their ingenious costumes.
Connor Norbury and Libby Smith for raising a large amount of sponsor money.
Abigail Lee (Year 7) for getting 100% on the sponsored sums.
A homework support club is started one evening a week to help pupils who may be struggling with some aspect of their maths.