We have a wide variety of activities and pursuits directly aimed at A-level students in the deciding stages of where to go after college.

A-Level activities and workshops

Networks and Infections (1 hour, KS4/5)

Students will learn about network theory and how this branch of mathematics can be used to understand how infections can spread - and how they can be prevented from spreading.

Voting & Elections  (1 hour, KS5)

This activity introduces and allows students to examine a number of different voting methods, the ways in which these methods can be manipulated to achieve certain outcomes, and the impossibility of fair elections when more than two alternatives are available. Methods include: Plurality voting, Alternative voting, Run-off, Plurality with Elimination, Pairwise voting, and Condorcet method. Students will discuss key results and issues that underlie observed phenomena when collective decisions are made, and they will observe connections between mathematics and other disciplines, such as politics.

The Mathematics of Finance  (1 hour, KS5)

This activity looks at the mathematics about how financial transactions happen, and the profitability and risk innvolved in financial instruments such as bank accounts, bonds and shares.

Mathematics of Google (1 hour, KS5)

The Google search engine, an internet page find-and-rank engine, came to dominate the market within two years, thanks to the application of mathematical graph theory to solve the problem of how to rank pages. In this activity, students will discover the mathematics behind the Google brand.  Please note that a computer lab is required for this activity.

Epidemics on Networks  (1 hour, KS5)

In this activity, students will explore the mathematics of how epidemics spead - and how they can be stopped - through the mathematical application of network theory.

Traveling Salesman  (1 hour, KS5)

The travelling sales problem is a classic problem which has been studied by mathematicians for nearly a hundred years. The problem is simple. A travelling salesman has a number of towns to visit, before finishing back where they started. What is the shortest path that they can take?
In this activity, students will explore the mathematics of minimum spanning trees.

Penrose Tiles (advanced activity)  (1 hour, KS5)

This activity is based on studying the tessellation techniques and geometric structure of Penrose tilings, and its connection with the golden ratio. Penrose Tiles are a system of tiling consisting of two shapes, specifically “kites” and ”darts”. Discovered by Sir Prof. Penrose in the 70’s, they are a series of non-periodic tiles that solve the five fold symmetry problem, that is they completely fill an area with tiles of 5 sides, which was previously only settled for 3, 4 and 6 sided polygons. The kites and darts form a non-symmetric pattern that has no translational symmetry.