Every Saturday morning for 6 weeks, 4 Francis Holland girls travelled to the Royal Institution for year 9 maths masterclasses.

Each week, there was a different speaker, where they all taught us a new concept each time. From learning about phi to discovering how some mind blowing magic tricks work, there was never a dull moment. From this amazing experience, I learnt so many new things especially including how important maths is in everyday life.
Isabella, Year 9

My experience at the Ri Mathematics Masterclasses-2017
by Marysia, Year 9

Week 1: On the first week Jenny Sharp took our session on Flowers, to Fine Art, exploring an extraordinary number-the golden number or phi. We explored the Fibonacci sequence and how it relates to nature, and drawing a swirl using the Fibonacci ratio, as well as exploring the Geometric Golden Ratio.

Week 2: On the second week we studied Algebra with Namrata Vora, studying how to find a perfect square using algebra. This was my favourite and most challenging session, as it challenged me to extend my algebra and apply it to a very hard problem, from what algebra I already knew.

Week 3: On the third week we had Rob Eastaway talk to us about all possible mathematics to do with cards, and explaining card tricks using mathematics such as probability and binary terms.

Week 4: On the third week Neil Cooper talked to us about half life, and how to calculate half life using logarithms, and how it is present in our everyday life. For example the decay of Carbon 14 atoms.

Week 5: Our penultimate session was on Logic taken by Ian Brown, in which we used logic to deduce the means of problems and to apply true or false to different statements which had different symbols added to them.

Week 6: Our last week was by Zoe Griffiths and entitled ‘Get Lucky’, in which we had to answer the question is the lottery worth entering if you are looking to make money – and the short answer was no. After we all collected our certificates in the very famous theatre where the likes of Charles Darwin had once spoken.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed these fascinating masterclasses and I was very honoured to be nominated to take part in these sessions, and learnt a vast amount of extra and thoroughly interesting mathematics, which gave me some insight into A-Level mathematics, which I really enjoyed and explored possible options into whether I would be interested into pursuing it even further. I would certainly recommend these sessions to anyone who wants to challenge themselves and is interested in A-Level mathematics and further, it really challenged my perspective of mathematics and allowed it to challenge myself in other areas that I won’t study for iGCSE and other areas I wouldn’t study until Year 12. Thank you to the whole mathematics department for giving up your own time to help out so that we could enjoy these sessions and thank-you to the Ri for arranging these sessions.