Since we launched our 'Maths in Paris' tour in 2004, many other travel companies have begun to offer maths trips for school and college groups but on closer inspection you have to ask, how much maths will there be?
We have recently looked at our maths itineraries and decided that we will give our clients more control over how much maths their students will do during the tour. Our maths tours have unique maths activities which have been designed by a Maths teacher with over 30 years experience who visited Paris and London to find relevant and interesting locations to demonstrate to students how important maths is in the 'real world'. The quality of the maths is high and each activity enables students to see the application of maths to their surroundings - buildings, transport, retail, leisure, mechanics - these all have bespoke maths puzzles and tasks that are designed to be completed in situ. Many of these activities involve discussion and elements of group work.
From teacher feedback we realised that some of these activities needed to be further differentiated so that lower ability students could acccess them, so last year we developed a pack of activities for lower ability KS3 students in addition to the standard pack and those for GCSE and A level students.
From 2015, our maths tours to Paris and London will have more options for groups. They will be able to choose the study locations they prefer to visit alongside the sightseeing and leisure activities chosen. We hope this will improve the 'value for money' element as then parents can see exactly how much maths their son or daughter is getting on one of our maths tours.
Hopefully, a better, curriculum relevant experience for all!