Maths at Oxford

Six pupils from Year 6 enjoyed an inspiring day at the University of Oxford as part of the GDST Maths Day.

A group of Mathematicians headed to Oxford to join pupils from across the Girls’ Day School Trust for a fun-filled day of fascinating lectures and interactive workshops designed to fuel their interest and love of mathematics. The day began with an interesting lecture by Andrew Jeffrey on The Maths and Magic of the Rubik’s Cube, followed by Liz Gibbs, who captivated them with Tangram Transformation, bringing the traditional Chinese dissection puzzle to life with geometry and imagination.

The girls also participated in a workshop that was organised by Sixth Form students at Oxford High School, who guided them through the interesting topic of magic squares – a hands-on session that encouraged our girls to employ problem-solving techniques and learn collaboratively. To finish off the day, South Hampstead’s team competed in the very competitive GDST quiz and won! Well done to all the girls for having represented South Hampstead so keenly and successfully.

I loved the quiz because it was challenging and we won. – Rosie 

My favourite part was ‘The maths and magic of the Rubiks Cube’ because I learnt a lot about cubes and cube numbers. – Clare 

I enjoyed learning about tangrams because you got to use your own imagination. – Izzy 

My favourite part was the quiz because the questions were really fun to work out – and because we won! – Taara 

I really enjoyed learning about the magic squares because they were challenging, and it was fun working with children from other schools. – Alisa 

I loved the Rubik’s cubes session; the cubes were fascinating to look at varying from 1 by 1 by 1, to 9 by 9 by 9. – Emma