Mr Wood's Maths Blog

The maths department certainly rose to the challenge at the...

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:10:00 +0100

The maths department certainly rose to the challenge at the ‘Bond’ themed Year 11 Prom last night! Both staff and students had a fantastic evening at Beamish Hall, dancing the night away until the early hours.

Looking ahead, we’d also like to wish good luck to all of our Year 11 students in their upcoming GCSE maths exams! The whole department is already looking forward to watching you opening those envelopes in August…

Manga High

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:27:00 +0100

Manga High:

As promised, here’s the link to Manga High for my Year 8 students. Use the user ID and password you’ve been provided with to log in to the site. There are three challenges to attempt, but you may wish to explore and try some of the other features of the website too.

I’m looking forward to seeing who makes it to the top of the leaderboards and hearing your feedback on this site!

Here’s a great video on finding the surface area of a cylinder...

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:55:00 +0100

Here’s a great video on finding the surface area of a cylinder from VividMaths. This should also be helpful to my Year 8 students who have a similar question on their homework this week. However, their problem involves working out the surface area of the cylinder, including the top and bottom. This means calculating the area of both circles, not just one!

Here’s a great video on finding the volume of a cylinder...

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:49:00 +0100

Here’s a great video on finding the volume of a cylinder from VividMaths. This should be helpful to my Year 8 students who have a similar question on their homework this week.

Here’s a great video on finding the median from a...

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:56:15 +0100

Here’s a great video on finding the median from a stem-and-leaf diagram. This should prove useful to my Year 10 students when they are attempting their homework this weekend.

Here’s a really useful video for my Year 10 students. This...

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:51:00 +0100

Here’s a really useful video for my Year 10 students. This short clip explains the basics of stem-and-leaf diagrams, a topic they have been studying this week.

My Year 10 students should find this video extremely useful. It...

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:40:00 +0100

My Year 10 students should find this video extremely useful. It explains how to find an estimate for the mean from a grouped frequency table.

Ratio Rumble

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:57:00 +0100

Ratio Rumble:

Check out this excellent ratio game from Math Snacks. ’Ratio Rumble’ is a fantastic way to improve your understanding of ratio and it’s great fun too!

The battle is on in this game where you build your own potions! Check your ratios to win this mixture mix-off!

Check out ‘The Metric Film’, a promotional movie...

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:04:00 +0100

Check out ‘The Metric Film’, a promotional movie made in 1975 that attempted to convince Americans to convert to the metric system. Thirty-eight years later and the U.S.A. is still using the Imperial system of measurements…

Just love this t-shirt design, combining 3-D shapes and...

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:53:00 +0100

Just love this t-shirt design, combining 3-D shapes and ‘Star Wars’! ‘That’s no moon. It’s a space station.’

Love those lines and angles…

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:47:00 +0100

Love those lines and angles…

Following my discussion on Fermi’s paradox with Year 9,...

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:30:00 +0100

Following my discussion on Fermi’s paradox with Year 9, this video should also prove to be of interest. From the BBC Horizon documentary ‘Voyager: To the Final Frontier’, Dallas Campbell tells the story of how mathematician Michael Minovitch solved the Three Body Problem which enabled the Voyager spacecraft Planetary Grand Tour.

Check out this wonderful, animated exploration of the famous...

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:21:00 +0100

Check out this wonderful, animated exploration of the famous Fermi paradox from TED-Ed. Given the vast number of planets in the universe, Chris Anderson tries to answer the question of why we haven’t yet seen obvious signs of alien life. The potential answers to this question are numerous and intriguing, alarming and hopeful.

"There are things which seem incredible to most men who have not studied Mathematics"

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:15:06 +0100

“There are things which seem incredible to most men who have not studied Mathematics”

- Archimedes

Here’s a great video that explains how to find the surface...

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:08:00 +0100

Here’s a great video that explains how to find the surface area of cuboids, cubes and triangular prisms. This should be especially useful to my Year 8 students who have been studying this topic over the past fortnight.

Here’s a short video that should prove useful to my Year 8...

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:03:00 +0100

Here’s a short video that should prove useful to my Year 8 students who are studying the topic of finding the volume of a cube or cuboid this week.

Here’s a great video from Math Antics about percentages....

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:49:00 +0100

Here’s a great video from Math Antics about percentages. My Year 7 students should find this especially useful, as they are studying percentages over the course of this week.

Topics for week commencing Monday 13th May

Sun, 12 May 2013 15:08:00 +0100

7X3: Understand and use the fact that percentages are parts of a hundred. Find percentages of amounts. Interpret scales of measure for length and convert between metric measurements. Functional skills.

7Y1: Functional skills.

8X1: Volume of right prisms. Surface area of right prisms. Volume & surace area of cylinders. Functional skills.

9X1: Convert between ordinary and standard form representations of numbers. Interpret a calculator display using standard form. Calculate with standard form. Use index laws to simplify and calculate the value of numerical expressions involving multiplication and division of integer, negative & fractional powers and powers of a power. Use 2-D representations of 3-D shapes. Use isometric grids. Draw nets and show how they fold to make a 3-D solid. Understand and draw front and side elevations and plans of shapes made from simple solids. Given the front and side elevations and the plan of a solid, draw a sketch of the 3-D solid.

10X4: Calculate averages and range from frequency tables. Estimate the mean for large data sets with grouped data and understand it is an estimate. Produce ordered stem-and-leaf diagrams and use them to find the range and averages. Draw and plot cumulative frequency tables and graphs. Use cumulative frequency graphs to find median, quartiles and interquartile range.

10Y2: Understand what is meant by ratios and use ratios. Write a ratio in its simplest form and find an equivalent ratio. Solve a ratio problem in context, e.g. recipes. Share a quantity in a given ratio.

11X2: Examination paper practice.

Maths Department 7 - 23 Science Department

Thu, 09 May 2013 19:44:00 +0100

Thursday evening (9/5/13), saw the resumption of Belmont’s footballing hostilities, as the Science Department lined up against the Maths Department in an extremely one-sided affair in the Sports Hall.

Mr Wood’s Match Report:

Archimedes, Pythagoras, Descartes, Euler. Carol Vorderman, can you hear me? Carol Vorderman, your boys took a hell of a beating! Your boys took a hell of a beating!*

Mathematicians know that a circle doesn’t have one side, but this game certainly did belong to one side: the Science Department. In this case, the circle was a sphere and it ended up nestled in the back of the Maths Department net, all too many times!

Awards:

Man Of The Match: Mr Hall (Controlled the game with a dynamic performance all over the pitch and weighed in with some scorching goals too!)

Shock Of The Match: Mr Taylor (First full game, but he kept running and working for the team from start to finish!)

Goal Of The Match: Mr Siday (Who’d have thought the boy from the ‘Boro could weave through a defence like a Brazilian samba dancer! Not unlike his boyhood idol, Juninho, Mr Siday’s effort was a skilful piece of individual magic!)

Big Thanks: The Students (Some of Belmont’s students came to show their support and received a free masterclass on how not to defend in 5-a-side football! How’s that for after-school tuition?)

Aim For Next Week: Mr Siday (Here’s hoping that Senor Messi, the maths supply teacher, has brought his boots with him from Spain, as he helps out with GCSE maths revision sessions next week!)

Team Line-ups:

Maths: Brinton, Rowell, Siday, Taylor, Wood

Science: Caygill, Colledge, Goodyear, Hall, Nesbitt

*Topical football joke from 1981 (see link!)

Following my discussion with Year 9 on square roots, this...

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:32:00 +0100

Following my discussion with Year 9 on square roots, this cartoon came to mind…