Case Study: MathsWorldUK - Hands-on maths at Gipton Together Summer Camp

Organisations involved: MathsWorldUK

Case study written by: Katie Chicot

Intended audience: Inner city children attending Gipton Together Summer Camp, age range 4 – 16 years.

Maths content: Measuring, Construction, Shape, Code breaking, Problem Solving

Audience group: Primary or Elementary, Lower secondary or Middle school, Upper secondary or High school

Audience interest level: Uninterested, Receptive, Engaged

Topics: Measuring, Hands-on, Shape, Codes and cryptography, Problem Solving

Origins of the Project

The mission of MathsWorldUK is to improve the culture of mathematics in the UK. We want to build resilience in our audiences and show that there are many faces to maths which can be fun, can be challenging and can be surprising.

MathsWorldUK wanted to try its activities in a range of settings and audiences. We particularly wanted to test our material on an audience which is traditionally harder to reach. The 2019 Summer Camp gave us the chance to work with disadvantaged children of all ages in a setting familiar to them.

The Summer Camp has previously offered a range of dance classes and has a good track record in raising the engagement of children broadly. The organisers are keen to provide other opportunities to their participants which improve their life chances and mathematics is the ideal candidate.

Practicalities

A photograph of the Henry Barran Community Centre, Gipton from outside the front. It is a one-storey brick building with a fence out front and a large sloping roof. — The Henry Barran Community Centre, Gipton. Photograph from Google Streetview.

Gipton Together Summer Camp is held at Gipton Community Centre. The summer camp is very low cost, with no childcare available at remotely comparable costs. It is always oversubscribed. The centre has small rooms and a hall. It doesn’t have much equipment to run talks or classes so we had to bring any equipment that we needed.

The audience was ready-made, in that the children were at the summer camp anyway. That said, the children had the option of not attending MathsWorldUK sessions.

The cohort was split into four age brackets with approx. 15 children in each group. We spent an hour with each age cohort each day and we ran four days. The participants are well known to the organisers. There were no physical disabilities in the group. The age range provided a set of accessibility issues - there was a broad range of cultures and English language skills represented. There were participants with ADD and ASD.

Given the range of abilities, interests and backgrounds we chose a hands-on set of activities which had scope for different levels of engagement. We had a minimum of 3 helpers for each session who collectively had a wealth of experience of working with children of all interests and abilities.

Day 1

Ages 4 – 8 – Baking and making boxes from nets For many of the children this was the first time they had baked from scratch. They had to measure their ingredients. Whilst the cakes were baking the children made boxes from nets.
Ages 8 – 16 Code breaking The older children were able to undertake code breaking activities starting with transposition ciphers and moving up to frequency analysis.

Day 2 Construction (for all ages)

Alongside 10 different commercial construction brands brands (Lego, Duplo, K-Nex, Straw and Connector kits, Agirlgle Stackers, Geomag, Mosaic Peg Board, Galt Marble run, Georello Gears, Cochranes Construction Straws) we took small groups to make a giant Leonardo dome collectively.

A photograph of two children from Gipton Together summer camp kneeling on the floor, constructing a Leonardo Dome - using strips of wood with notches, hooked together into a shallow dome shape — Building a Leonardo dome

Day 3 Problem Solving with MathsWorldUK equipment

Games, including a tower version of Sudoku, soma cubes etc

A photograph of three children from Gipton Together summer camp standing around a table with cups and saucers in four colours, arranged in a 4 by 4 grid — Completing a physical sudoku

A photograph of children from Gipton Together summer camp standing around a table with their hands on a large wooden truncated icosahedron, which has coloured pieces that can be stuck to each face and is labelled ‘4 COLOUR MAP’ — Working on a 3D version of the 4-colour map problem

Day 4 Problem Solving with Board games

Games, including Rush hour and Genius square

A photograph of the board game Rush Hour

Evidence and Recommendations

This project was run without funding and so without a requirement for a formal evaluation or written report.

The children were sceptical that they could enjoy any maths session but they attended all four days and were clearly excited by the activities. We had been warned by the organisers that the children would be likely to drop out of our sessions which didn’t happen.

We were given verbal feedback from organisers and the children that they had hugely enjoyed the sessions. The adults who assist at the community centre were also sceptical of mathematics but became very interested in our sessions. We were invited to attend subsequent years (which the pandemic has prevented).

Most of the problems we faced we had anticipated. These included a lack of equipment and the need for a lot of adult support with some activities. The rooms were not ideal but we adapted our activities to fit the space.

As we didn’t formally evaluate the work there are questions which are unanswered including what the students learned and what their lasting impression was. It would be nice to run a similar activity and measure before and after impressions of how much they would engage with/enjoy the session.

More information

MathsWorldUK website: mathsworlduk.com