“ALL IS NUMBER” said Plato; and it is on the top floor of New Block (along with a great view of the cricket) where our Maths Department can be found. Maths is central to College’s academic life and is staffed by highly qualified teachers with a wide range of interests. The rooms are fully equipped with Promethean interactive whiteboards and a wide range of software is used to help pupils understand and expand their Maths.

Every pupil in Lower College takes Maths IGCSE (Set 1 takes it early at the end of Fourth Form and goes on to Additional Maths in Fifth Form). In Sixth Form, between 12 and 30 pupils take Further Maths A level, and another 30 to 40 take Maths A level alone. It’s one of the biggest departments in the College, and very successful.

Maths doesn’t however, stop in the classroom: we run weekly puzzle competitions and extra classes. We belong to the Gloucestershire Mathematical Association and hear talks by eminent mathematicians. We also run our own Lower College Mathematics Society at which teachers and pupils talk about topics ranging from Pi to code-breaking to magic.

Pupils also compete in national mathematical competitions on a regular basis, with a steady flow of Gold, Silver and Bronze awards.

Dr Brendan Enright, Head of Mathematics

Earlier in the year 60 pupils from the 6th form took part in the Senior Maths Challenge. Again the results were impressive with around a third of pupils gaining certificates.

Jihwan Park and James Baker did particularly well, both secured gold certificates. Jihwan also qualified for the Maths Olympiad where he did very well indeed.

Around a hundred Lower College pupils took part in the UKMT's Intermediate Maths Challenge Competition last month. This is a national competition run by Leeds University, the questions test ingenuity and mathematical ability.

Results this year were excellent: 7 Gold certificates, 15 Silver and 23 Bronze.  Chai Tephabutra (5th form, Boyne) came top of the school with an impressive score of 90%. The paper is the same for all three year groups and so the fact that three Fourth formers: Cameron Campbell (Leconfield), Thomas Dowley (Leconfield) and Oliver Thorley (Boyne), managed to bag Golds is impressive. Third former George Cook (Christowe) must also be commended for his score of 71%.

Chai Tephabutra and Cameron Campbell have been invited to take part in the next round, The European Kangaroo. This is a much more difficult paper and they will now be competing against pupils from right across Europe.

Congratulations to all that took part.

Two of our best students have received offers to study Mathematics at Oxbridge next year.

Jun Ho Ku has an unconditional offer to read Mathematics at Homerton College, Cambridge; and AJ Gilbert has an offer to read Mathematic and Philosophy at St Anne's College Oxford.

Very well done to both.

All pupils at College have been registered on the website http://www.mymaths.co.uk/ The website offers a fully interactive, online mathematics learning solution for all ages and abilities. There is a vast selection of materials available on this website for extra practice and revision to complete online as directed by their teacher.

To get to the materials you first need to log on to the site.

Go to http://www.mymaths.co.uk/ and login at the top of the homepage. The College login and password have been e-mailed to all pupils.

 Each pupil then has an individual login to access material that their teacher has asked them to do as prep or revision, these have also been emailed to pupils.

Congratulations to last years U6th who achieved outstanding A2 results in Maths this year. 36% of students gained an A*, which is a very hard grade to achieve as it requires a 90% average over the two hardest modules (Core 3 and Core 4). 71% gained an A or better. The A*/A/B figure at 88% is the second best ever achieved. Results in Further Maths were equally impressive.

The Mathematics department also recorded another excellent set of results at IGCSE. All of the pupils gained a C grade or above. 27% recorded an A* and the headline figure of 60% for A and above is the second best in the College's history. Well done to last years 5th form and keep up the hard work during your A-Levels.