To mark Pi Day, Westbourne House was awash with maths.
Years 3 and 4 focused on circles. They used a compass to make a perfect circle, before finding and measuring the diameter and using a piece of string to measure the circumference. They divided the circumference by the diameter to try and get 3.14 or Pi.
In Years 5 - 8, the focus was on diversity in maths. Mrs Langford said: "We wanted to challenge the perception that mathematicians are predominantly European men such as Einstein, Euler and Pythagoras."
Years 5 & 6 studied Florence Nightingale, who loved mathematics and, aged 20, begged and convinced her parents she should be allowed to be tutored in maths. Ultimately, she used her knowledge of maths to provide convincing statistics to the government of the time that the changes she was making, as a nurse in a Crimean hospital, were so hugely beneficial and life saving.
"Nightingale's knowledge of mathematics became evident when she used her collected data to calculate the mortality rate in the hospital. These calculations showed that an improvement of the sanitary methods employed would result in a decrease in the number of deaths. By February 1855 the mortality rate had dropped from 60% to 42.7%. Through the establishment of a fresh water supply as well as using her own funds to buy fruit, vegetables and standard hospital equipment, the mortality rate in the spring had dropped further to 2.2%." School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland
Years 7 & 8 studied Srinivasa Ramanujan, an Indian mathematician who suffered great prejudice because he was both Indian and poor. He had the chance to study at Cambridge, where things weren't much easier. He had an amazing ability to work out complex maths. During his short life, Ramanujan independently compiled nearly 3,900 results (mostly identities and equations). Many were completely novel; his original and highly unconventional results have opened entire new areas of work and inspired a vast amount of further research.
Both Nightingale and Ramanujan were supported by someone; someone who did fit the stereotype of 'mathematician' of the time, who stood up for them, supported them and told others to take notice and listen. We talked about how it only takes one person to do this and what an important role this supporter has as well. It shows that we all have a part to play and is a great lesson in empathy.
Mrs Langford said: "What was really wonderful is that children have been inspired by these stories and have told me 'I'd like to become mathematician'. Both Nightingale and Ramanujan believed maths came from God because otherwise how could there be so much maths in nature and all around. I hope that the children can see that maths is not a singular subject but a part of life itself."
Maths adventure stories were written in Year 7.
Read the full story and other Pi stories
Maths was brought into other subjects during the day as well and here is a short clip of some Pi Day maths in History lesson with Century Bingo, where pupils selected six different centuries, and then were given a date, from which they worked out the century and crossed it off their sheet if they had it. They also looked at old coins and a currency converter which showed them how much the money is both worth now, and what it would have bought then.
