Lowestoft Sixth Form College

The Maths in Action project came to a conclusion, where the students presented their solutions to the problems set to them by local Engineering Companies AKD & 3SunGroup. They presented with confidence and accuracy and did themselves and the college proud.

The aim of the project was three-fold. One, to make students aware and give them an understanding of what careers are available in the Engineering sector, two, to give students an insight to how mathematics is used in real-life situations and three, to help develop students professional presentation skills in preparation for job interviews and university interviews.

The stage was set four weeks previous to this when the students were given presentations by the companies of the type of work that they do and what career opportunities there were in the sector. The following week the students visited the companies where they were presented with a real-life engineering problem to solve. After this Tim Crane from AKD and Charlie Miller from 3SunGroup kindly gave their time to come into college to help students prepare their presentations. This whole process culminated in the presentations given in the Performance Space in front of their peers, members of the local engineering community, members of Waveney district council, our sponsors and colleagues from Enterprise Lowestoft who helped organise the whole event.

A special mention should be given to the winners of the best presentation and best teamwork awards; Hannah Smith, Marie Parker, Kristian Spooner, Liam Websdale, Jamie Margetson, Zoe Leech and Samuel Love.
They really made an impression on the audience and should feel very proud of their achievements as should everyone who gave a presentation. Kristian Spooner said of the experience “I’ve learnt a lot about myself, working in a team and developing my self-confidence. This has showed us how maths is really important other than in the college”.

Their Maths teacher, Jack Keeler was very proud saying “This project has really given the students an insight into how the maths we learn in the classroom is applied. To stand in front of such a large audience is never easy but they applied themselves well, worked hard and I am very proud of them!!!”.