Maths Week 2020 at Krishna Avanti Primary Maths

Maths Week 2020 at Krishna Avanti Primary

Maths Is (Not) Boring! Teachers often hear the same phrases from pupils, over and over again. One comment that will usually pop up in every teachers’ time of teaching is: “Maths is pointless!” or “ Maths is boring. I’m never going to use it!” Be warned! These are the kind of things that teachers love to talk about. It gives them chance to explain just how special and useful maths is. This week is Maths Week. It’s about celebrating all the amazing things in our world which use Maths and encouraging children to take Maths beyond school!

Maths at Home Think about what you did before coming to school today. Do you think it involved maths? It did! You got up. How did you know when to get up? You got dressed. Hopefully, you knew how many socks to put on! You had breakfast. If you had toast, how did you make sure it was light or well done? How did you work out how much butter or jam to put on it? If you had cereal, how did you know how much to put in your bowl? Or how much milk?

Maths at Home It was maths! Your morning probably involved time, counting, weight: perhaps it even included measuring. If you help to cook at home, that involves weight, time and number. Sometimes it can include fractions, division or multiplication too, if you are halving or doubling a recipe. If you have pizza for dinner, how does whoever is serving it make sure everyone gets a share? Fractions. If you take medicine, how does the adult know how much to give you? They measure it or look at the size or strength to work out the dose.

Maths at School Maths happens in school even when you’re not having a maths lesson. Some uses of maths are obvious: time is used a great deal for bells or classes so that we know when it is class time, break or lunch time. There is maths in the background too, though. Someone calculates how many pupils are in each class and makes sure there is enough space. Someone has to make sure that your teachers all get time to plan and mark. Someone has to work out who is free to teach a class if a staff member is ill. All these thing use maths.

Maths at School If you are playing outside, it’s maths that helps you work out whether you can balance, climb, jump over or slide. If you do a subject that needs a special room, like music or PE: it is maths that makes sure everyone else has a turn in that room too. If you go on a school trip, it involves maths. A school trip needs lots of maths: money; budgeting; making sure there are enough staff available at school and on the trip; planning transport; journey times; opening times and working out how many people can go.

Maths at Work For those of you that think you will never use maths when you leave school, think again! Would anyone like to work in the If you want to be a doctor or nurse fire brigade? They use measuring, you will use weight, fractions, angles and numbers to put out a fire. multiplication or division, mass and height to help your patients. Does anyone want to be an inventor or engineer? They use maths to If you want to be a builder, you design and test their inventions. will use maths. If you want to be a farmer, a driver, a teacher, an astronaut, a shop worker…they all use maths! In fact, most jobs use maths.

Maths Is All around Us Maths is a big part of our lives, whether we like it or not. Some people really enjoy it. Some people really don’t! What is important is that you understand that maths is useful and that you will use it in your life. Everyone has the ability to be good at maths. Teachers know that maths makes some people nervous. It’s ok to be nervous about it: just don’t give up on it. It helps you more than you realise…

Are You Ready? Your teachers have prepared lots of fun activities for you to do this week. Teachers- Remember to take lots of pictures (these can also be uploaded onto google classrooms for parents to see). Enjoy yourselves and be creative mathematicians!!