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, along 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:

Mr Cafferkey

Maths Department

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