International Maths Seminar

Dated: 27/01/2010

For the second year, we took a group of Don Valley Year 11 students to participate in an international Maths event at North Sefton CLC. Students from schools in Holland, Germany, France, Spain and more locally, from Liverpool, participated over 2 days in a variety of problem solving exercises. The students were understandably nervous at the beginning, but their confidence quickly grew when they were put in international teams and started to solve problems. Each group had to present their solutions in English- a daunting task for those who were not used to speaking in English! In the afternoon, they studied tesselations and had the opportunity to put their individual designs on a mug.

The second day was taken up with the “lift exercise”. This was based around an imaginary sky-scraper where there were problems getting the rush hour workforce to the right floor at the right time. Not only did the pupils have to produce a solution, but they had to present it in an accessible way using the radio and video facilities available at the Centre. All the groups produced workable solutions, but just as importantly, the event gave the pupils an opportunity to develop and demonstrate skills, such as creative thinking and teambuilding, in an international context.

By the end of the 2 days, students had grown in confidence and said their goodbyes fondly. We hope to meet again sometime and hopefully re-visit Sefton CLC next year. Many thanks to all those who participated in the event.