Anjali Marwaha

Anjali Marwaha talks about the role that STEMNET played in bringing new and exciting enhancement & enrichment activities to the school.

Please describe the role that STEMNET played in helping your school.

STEMNET put me in touch with The Oxford Trust, our local STEMPOINT contract holder. They were very helpful in terms of suggesting other people who could bring resources to our school for the day, and even contacted some to see if they were available on the day we wanted. The ‘Maths in a Suitcase’ resource was booked as a result.


Please describe the nature of the project.

Year 7 Maths Enrichment Day 23 October 2008
Keynote presenter (Johnny Ball – suggested by another teacher in the department), 2 classrooms of teacher led maths puzzles and games (manual and pc based), ‘Maths in Suitcase’ suite of maths puzzles and games. All run in rotation for 200 Y7 pupils. Twenty Y4/5/6 pupils (all level 5) from a cluster primary school (Burford School) also attended the keynote talk.

Do you feel the day had a positive impact on your school?  If so, please describe how.

In terms of the impact of the day on the pupils, we are hoping that by showing them that maths can be exciting and fun we will increase their levels of motivation for the subject. The early signs are good and we are carrying out an evaluation to see what pupils think. As maths teachers, we see that pupils are ‘noticing’ our subject and we enjoy that, as well as benefitting from pupils’ increased motivation. Enrichment activity does raise the profile of our subject within the school. Teachers can also get ideas that they can use in the classroom.

Do you have any tips for other teachers eg, how to work with businesses?

Plan the day well in advance and don’t leave things until the last minute! It can be hard to find the information you want about enrichment activities. The Oxford Trust were a valuable source of information and I now know about the STEM directories too. This day was funded through the school’s Technology Specialism.

Any other comments?

This Year 7 Maths Day builds on other enrichment activities we have carried out in the past. I came to the school 3 years ago and at that stage there was no maths enrichment activity, but it's something that I have been a part of building up. Our first involvement was with the UK Maths Trust Maths Challenge. This operates at 3 levels - Junior (Y7/8), Intermediate (Y9/10/11) and Senior (Y12/13). The school still participates in this and the numbers of pupils involved has gradually built up. Last year I began taking pupils on trips so they could see maths in action outside the classroom - for example we took some gifted & talented pupils to Brunel University. Because our enrichment activities in the past have tended to involve the more able pupils this year we were keen to do something that involved pupils of all abilities. We also wanted to focus on Year 7 in order to increase levels of motivation and enjoyment in maths as early as possible.

Overall Comments on the day from pupils:

I think the Maths day went very well and it was very enjoyable. I liked the puzzles most because they were very challenging and fun at the same time. – George Biggs

I found the maths day really interesting as it was much better than sitting behind a desk. Johnny Ball’s talk was really interesting and I think it has helped me understand maths, and made the subject more clear to me. The puzzles were a bit challenging but at the same time really interesting and fun. When we had a lesson with Mr. Taylor we played on a website called my maths and that was really good fun as well. Overall if I had to describe the day in a word it would be INTERESTING. – Rachel Hunt (7G)

I really enjoyed the maths day because maths is not one of my strongest subjects but it helped me to understand maths clearly and slo helped widen my mind and how I feel about the subject. The maths day has made me more confident about maths and has also helped me understand it. – Callum Hildebrandt (7O)

I enjoyed the day a lot. It’s interesting how your opinion about maths can change in one day. I really enjoyed Johnny Ball because he explained how easy maths can be if you put your head in gear and think. I also enjoyed the games that we played and puzzles we sorted out. On the whole the day was great fun! - Olivia Duff