">
Senior Department News
Maths Focus
- Two is such a lovely number it deserves a bit of celebrating, don’t you think? So, here are some fun facts to tickle your twos-tastebuds…
- Two is the first and only even prime number. As you know, prime numbers are those integers with only two factors. Every other even number is a multiple of 2 and by definition, cannot be prime.
- Two is the framework of the binary system that is used in computing. A binary number is made up of only 1s and 0s, There is no 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 in binary! Our base 10 number system has Ones, Tens, Hundreds etc. as our place value columns, however the binary system is made up of Powers of 2 (1, 2, 4, 8 etc). Much fun can be had coding and decoding in binary (as we will investigate in Senior Department maths lessons).
- The square root of two was the first known irrational number and the source of an interesting story about Pythagoras of Samos. Cast your mind back to your high school maths lessons and you will no doubt remember Pythagoras as the source of many problems about triangles! In fact, Pythagoras was also an ancient Greek philosopher, who had his own community of followers known as the Pythagoreans. The belief of this group was “All is number” or “God is Number”. But only whole numbers! One poor follower, Hippasus of Metapontum, dared to suggest the existence of the square root of two. The first non-integer! Poor old Hippasus was promptly rowed out to sea and dropped over the side of the boat!
Who knew numbers could be so dangerous..?
In the maths department we are looking forward to another day that is coming up and will involve even more tremendous twos, the 22/02/2022. Even better, it falls on a Tuesday. Henceforth we shall refer to this as Twosday!
We have lots of fun activities planned for that special day, so keep an eye on our Twitter page and ask your child what they did to celebrate “Twosday”
Maths Wordles
If you have been bitten by the “Wordle” bug, why not try this mathematical equivalent?
Mrs Wright
Head of Mathematics
Top Form Maths
Year 6 Future Skills
During the last two weeks in Future Skills, Year 6 pupils were challenged to work together to demonstrate their skills in teamwork. Our School values of collaboration, friendship, kindness, patience, perseverance, resilience, respect and trust were clearly in evidence by the bucketful. Much fun was had as they rose to the challenges of building the highest unsupported tower, and lifting a cup as a group without touching it.
Increasingly, senior schools are using team challenges to assess pupils’ wider skills. Beechwood pupils are well prepared for this!
Mrs Clarke
Top Form PSHEE
This week, Top Form have been putting together their PSHEE floor books. Below, you can see member of Top A reflecting on their mental health and how they prepared for their recent scholarship exams, considering the best ways to keep mentally healthy, taking into account the importance of sleep, eating well, and exercising. They have also been using “blob trees” to chart where they were at the beginning of the process, and where they are now.
Well done Top Form on some really interesting discussions.
Mrs Clarke
Year 6 and 7 Science
Year 6 scientists have been learning about chromatography this week . Chromatography is the process for separating components of a mixture. The different components of the mixture travel through the stationary phase at different speeds, causing them to separate from one another.
Meanwhile, in Year 7 science lessons, pupils have been investigating the reaction of magnesium and oxygen, and discovering why it burns so brightly – do ask your children to explain the exothermic reaction to you!
LAMDA
Well done to the Senior Department pupils who took their LAMDA exams recently. What wonderful performances, which you can enjoy by clicking on the links below:
James and the Giant Peach, performed by Florence B and Isla P, Year 6
Almost, performed by Audrey E, Year 7
The Tempest, performed by Felix M, Year 7
The Rivals, performed by Maggie D and Maya T, Top Form
