Everyone loved the hands-on activities and challenges in the two days of workshops provided by Brainwave Education and the Education Group.  Pupils from Nursery to Year 6 built and explored the properties of 2D and 3D shapes on Monday.  On Thursday, children collaborated to create cubes, patterns and tangrams with brightly coloured foam pieces, earning points for their teams.

There were lots of exciting lessons all around the school.  For example, Year 4 explored the Egyptian number system and built pyramids out of sugar cubes.  Year 1 created 2D shape monsters, sorted sweets into categories and used games such as snakes and ladders to reinforce their number bonds.  Year 6 investigated statistics about climate change, linking maths to their Ice Worlds topic, and investigated shapes using matchsticks. Year 2 got to grips with measuring length and breadth, both in class and around the school site. Year 3 investigated fractions using shapes and played games around adding and subtracting fractions, while Year 5 learned about the ancient Mayan number system and pitted their wits against pentominoes puzzles and challenging solo and competitive games.

The school was hit by Times Tables Rock Stars mania throughout the week, with ‘Battle of the Bands’ play-offs being contested in every year group.  An amazing number of children managed to improve their Rock Star status, getting quicker and more accurate each day.  The ICT room was full to overflowing each lunchtime and children around the school were using tablets and laptops to maximise their scores while strengthening their recall of key facts.  Three new ‘Rock Heroes’ were born, with one student even inching ahead of the fastest teachers!

There were competitions around problem solving and estimation, and the week ended with a celebration assembly with certificates and prizes for many children.

Finally, children across the school were delighted to have parents and grandparents join them in maths lessons during Open Morning on Tuesday. This gave the adults the opportunity to hear a presentation about how maths is taught at St Benedict’s, before visiting classes to observe maths lessons.