This half term, Year 5 pupils from Bromley High School and local primary schools participated in engaging Masterclasses led by Maths teacher Miss Lawrence and Sixth Form mathematicians.
At the end of January, the entire Year 5 group headed to the Senior School to take part in the first Bromley High School Year 5 Masterclass. Maths teacher Miss Lawrence presented a masterclass on Fibonacci’s Sequence in Nature. Pupils explored the nature of sequences, the Golden Ratio, the Golden Spiral, and how plants grow according to the Golden Angle to maximise their ability to capture light or produce the most appealing flowers. The pupils examined the spiral arrangements of seeds on sunflowers to determine whether, as the theory suggests, the numbers of spirals correspond to Fibonacci numbers.
The pupils learned how architects, artists, and engineers use the Golden Ratio to create beauty in their work or optimise performance.
“The session would not have been possible without the support of our Year 12 mathematicians and academic scholars or without the enthusiasm of the Year 5 students, who were working on content not usually encountered until Key Stage 3, 4, or even Key Stage 5!”Miss Lawrence, Second in Charge of Mathematics
On 5ht of February, members of Year 12 presented a masterclass on the subject of Pi to gifted and talented Year 5 pupils from local schools. Pupils learned about the significance of Pi and how it can be used to find both the circumference and the area of circles. They explored the nature of Pi, discovering that it is an infinite decimal irrational number. Pupils had the opportunity to demonstrate their memory skills by reciting as many digits of Pi as they could.
