NatWest Money Sense
Over the STEM Festival, Years 7, 8, 9 and 10 have been delving in to how mathematics relates to the UK financial system during some of their Maths lessons.
In Year 7, students learned about the difference between debit and credits cards. Students were very aware that a debit card gave you access to the money you had earned while a credit card was where you were borrowing money. However, students were not aware of the issues that misusing a credit card could cause.
Students also discussed when we should be using a debit card and when to use a credit card. Some scenarios that were talked about were paying the monthly mortgage bill and paying for a holiday. Students realised that the mortgage bill should not be paid by a credit card as we are paying back borrowed money by borrowing more money which is not financially wise; whilst paying for a holiday by credit card was due to the protection you get with using one if a holiday company went into administration.
In Year 8, students were given an opportunity to learn about what to look out for on a pay slip. Although it may be quite a while before students may see one of these, the importance of seeing one now and how this links to the maths they are currently learning was invaluable.
Students were very intrigued to know about the tax code and their national insurance number and when they will receive these. They were not aware of how a few numbers in the tax code could impact the amount of tax each of us pay and the amount we end up taking home.
We then moved onto looking at the deductions, learning about when we pay income tax and the brackets of income tax that we can fall into. They also looked at what national insurance is and how much we have to pay; they couldn’t believe that you started paying for national insurance at £9750 but income tax was £12500.
Overall, students were very keen to see where the money they earn goes and how tax and national insurance is calculated. At least they can attempt to make an estimate on the wages they will receive into their banks in the future.
In Year 9 students looked at insurance. This made them aware of the different types of insurance that was available and, in some cases, needed. They were not fully aware that it is a legal requirement to have car insurance when driving a car but it was not a legal requirement to have other types of insurance, for example buildings insurance if you owned a home. It was amazing to see the knowledge that the Year 9 students had and the awareness of the different types of insurance that was out there.
In Year 10, students were given an opportunity to learn about different types of financial frauds and scams. The students discussed how fraud arises and what you and your bank can do to protect yourself. Some examples involve avoiding sharing personal details online, checking your bank statements for unusual activity and always questioning any emails or posts that offer opportunities for easy money.
Escape Rooms
Students in Year 9 were also given the opportunity to take part in a virtual escape room in their Maths lessons. They were placed into teams of five and given a different problem in seven different ‘rooms’ in a school that they had to solve in order to escape.
The rooms were scrambled for each team so everyone completed the puzzles in a different order. As some rooms were harder than others, they didn’t know how they were doing until the very end.
After completing all the rooms, there was one final challenge which was to decode the key cards and answer three questions in order to win. Each of the key cards they had received had different clues on them. The students had to work as a team to be able to solve the problem and ‘escape’.
Code Breaking
Year 8 students enjoyed a spot of codebreaking in their Maths lessons during the STEM fortnight. They learned that cracking codes and unravelling the true meaning of secret messages involves lots of maths, from simple addition and subtraction, to data handling and logical thinking. Famous historical codebreakers such as Alan Turing were looked at with his role in deciphering the German Enigma code during World War 2, proving to be a particularly interesting discussion point.
Students also tried their hand at breaking a range of different codes including the ‘Dancing Men’, ‘Pig Pen’ and ‘Caesar’ ciphers as well as a bit of Morse Code. Why not have a go at breaking the code below which uses the aforementioned ‘Dancing Men’ cipher:
Key:
Coded message:
Bits & Pieces
Year 11 were given the opportunity look into how mathematics links to the real world. They looked at how the code breaking at Bletchley Park and another code, the Lorenz cipher, thought to be unbreakable, broke the Enigma code. Year 11 discovered how breaking the Lorenz cipher has impacted how we communicate today through the use of the internet. This helped to develop the ASCII code. ASCII is used now for computers to communicate between each other over the internet. Students had the opportunity to see how ASCII worked and how messages were encoded and decoded.
Enigma Machine
Year 10 students participated in an activity exploring the construction and operation of the Enigma machine, which was used by the Nazi’s to encode messages during the Second World War. After watching a demonstration of a virtual Enigma machine, they had the opportunity to decode messages themselves. This involved setting the ring positions and configuring the plugboard before inputting their Morse code messages to uncover the hidden text.
Through this hands-on experience, students gained insight into the efforts of the allies in deciphering enemy communications. They learned how breaking the Enigma code was instrumental in understanding Nazi strategies, ultimately helping to shift the course of the war in favour of the allies and contributing to the end of World War II.
Mr Cafferkey
Maths Department
