Birmingham summer school
Posted by Martin Orr on Sunday, 13 July 2008 at 21:12
I have just spent a week at the National Mathematics Summer School in Birmingham. Forty-two fourth/fifth form students are invited, the idea being to expose them to a broader range of mathematics than they get in school. Six sixth-formers are also invited; as well as being given some maths of their own, they are expected to look after a group of the younger children. I was at the summer school myself in 2001, and as a senior in 2002, but haven't been since.
This week had a strong geometrical flavour - four of the seniors' five sessions had a geometrical or topological theme, and there was much building of models of solids, either from plastic kits or origami. I gave the seniors a talk on hyperbolic geometry - a change from the Euclidean geometry I usually do at olympiad training camps. I think it went pretty well, and managed not to be too hard for them. I felt like I had not much to do overall at the camp, despite there being surprisingly few permanent staff. Still I enjoyed it, and it reaches a lot more children than the formal Olympiad training scheme.
Since the summer school finished on Friday, I have been staying with my aunt in Hove. I visited the magnificent Brighton Pavilion, the hilly town of Lewes and Seaford, on the sea. Tomorrow I am going on to France.