World’s Biggest Maths Lesson

On Friday 2nd December Year 7 took part in Number Day – a big sponsored maths lesson to raise money for the NSPCC.

Excited year 7 students learnt about code-breaking throughout history, cracked secret codes and wrote their own codes.

They also learnt about the Morse code invented in the 1840s to send messages using Samuel Morse’s electric telegraph. The process involves the use of series of short signals (dots) and long signals (dashes) to represent letters and numbers. These processes can be sent using a light or sound.

The interactive session involved the study of The Enigma machine Used by the Germans during WWII to send and receive coded messages. Britain and its allies cracked the code and were able to decipher the messages.
This helped the allies win the war!

The lesson progressed to different types of codes in use today. And the main areas of discussions were: post codes, flag semaphore, sign language, and Braille. Postcodes are used to show different areas through the country.

Flag semaphore is used to send messages to someone in the distance, such as between navy ships. Sign language can be used by people who can’t speak, to communicate. Braille uses raised dots to represent letters, helping blind people to read.

A group of year 7 were asked how the lesson went, they responded “a truly fantastic experience with lots of information and fun".