Year 5 Maths Masterclass Decodes Pascal’s Triangle

Year 5 pupils from Primary Schools across Cornwall gathered at Truro School over the weekend for the first in a series of three Maths Masterclass sessions.

Run as a part of the school’s community outreach programme, which extends across the Prep and Senior Schools, the Maths Masterclasses are a chance for budding mathematicians to come and experience fun and challenging maths teaching in our Senior School classrooms.

On the maths menu this week was Probability. Led by Mrs Alford and Mrs Duke, the session looked at the actual probability of winning the lottery. The concept of probability was explained with a simple heads or tails exercise before the children began to unpick the formula for Pascal’s triangle. By using smaller sets of numbers, pupils were able to understand the formula (n+1)C(r) = (n)C(r – 1) + (n)C(r).

By cracking this, they investigated the true value of playing the lottery and concluded that the probability of winning is 1 in 45,057,474!

Pupils who have pre-registered will attend two further sessions on ‘The Mobius Strip’ and ‘Tactics in Games’. A huge thanks to all the staff who helped on the day, particularly Mrs Alford and Mrs Duke who taught such engaging and enjoyable sessions.