How do you bring a maths lesson to life? More specifically, how do you convince hundreds of pupils that there is something interesting about the number pi?
For maths teacher Chris Smith, the answer was this: get 432 pupils outside (in 35 mph “howling winds”); issue them with coloured, numbered and laminated A3 placards; bellow instructions with a megaphone; and send up a drone to capture the whole business.
Mr Smith, who was named Scotland’s teacher of the year in 2018, has posted a video of this tribute to pi, where pupils show some of the infinite number of decimal places that follow 3.14.
The stunt by the teacher at Grange Academy, in Kilmarnock, East Ayrshire, attracted many supportive comments online, with another school’s maths department tweeting: “Pi from the sky. Love it”.
Scotland’s chief inspector, Gayle Gorman, tweeted: “Love it Chris!”
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