As a Mathematics teacher myself, I am willing to admit that one of the more common questions that we get asked, particularly by junior students is “where is this going to be useful in life”. Many may think that this is a question we hate being asked … I don’t agree as being asked this question only gives us an opportunity to brag about how important Maths is in almost everything that we do. This question allows an opportunity for us to get off task for a while and explore Maths at its best … that is … in a practical way.

After saying this, there is no doubt that some students do find the link between Maths and what they perceive important in life very vague.

The 14th March is International Pi Day each year (for those who wonder why it is on this day – it comes back to the numbers 3.14 … the 3rd month and 14th day). This year, our Head of Mathematics, Mrs Katina Sweeting, asked all the Maths teachers to focus on Pi in their classes on Tuesday the 16th March as we were away on the Monday. To go with this, the morning tea for the boys was a scrumptious cup-cake with the Pi symbol across the top … there was no escaping Pi on International Pi Day … especially when your Boarding Coordinator is a Maths teacher!

On the night of the celebrations, I quized a few boys on what they had learnt about Pi. Below are some of the responses I got:

“Pi is from ancient history and the symbol is the 16th letter in the Greek Alphabet.”

“Pi is the circumference of a circle divided by the diameter.”

“Albert Einstein was born on Pi Day – even though it didn’t exist then”

“There’s a lot of numbers after the decimal point”

“Without Pi we would not be able to understand circles properly and make use of them as we do today”

“Pi never repeats”

“Pi is good because without it we wouldn’t have got big cup-cakes for recess”

In addition to learning about Pi, there was a competition run to see which student in the school could memorise the most decimal places of Pi (a ratio which has an infinite number of decimal places).

In Year 7, the winner of this competition was Mac Waugh (Balmain). Incredibly Mac has memorised and can recite 50 decimal places of Pi! Don’t believe me? Well check out the video below of Mac reciting the values at Div Meeting in front of the whole form!

But Alas! I have just re-watched this video and have noticed that in fact Mac has done it to 55 decimal places!!!

Well done Mac and a huge congratulations to the Year 7 Maths teachers who had all the boys excited and talking about Maths outside the classroom … even if it is only for one day a year!

Pictured in Photo 2:  Spencer Wilson (Willoughby), Ben Williams (Hunters Hill) and Ryan Lyne (Roseville)