FKS School

Yesterday I asked a few year six pupils if they could tell me something they had learnt in the last twenty-four hours…

Toluwani told me that a mathematician called Goldbach discovered that every even number after four can be made up as a sum of two prime numbers. This is called the ‘Goldbach Conjecture‘. Toluwani learnt this when he had finished his other work in the maths lesson. He showed me where he read this in his maths text book.

Rory told me he’s found out that John Harris is visiting the school (02/03/12) for World Book Day (01/03/12). Rory found this out through the school newsletter. Out of John’s books Rory enjoyed ‘The Pearl in the Grass’ the most, because the storyline was more complicated than in the other books.

Billy has learnt that Terry Pratchet has Alzheimer’s disease, Billy’s brother told him this. Billy thinks Terry’s books are “..funny, some of the characters are a bit odd and it can be a bit hard to keep track of the plot.” (they sound great!)
Billy tells me that Terry Pratchet has written eighty three books in the Discworld series. Billy has read three of them. He described to me the basic idea (turtle, in space, three worlds on his back…) Billy has inspired me here, I think that recent ICT lessons using the program Kodu  could could allow us to make a discworld type world. Stories (sci-fi anyone?) as well as programming could come out of Kodu… (exciting..watch this space!)

Sam saw his cousin’s pet rat shaking. Apparently (Sam’s Auntie says) that towards the end of a rat’s two-to-five year life their hair goes grey, their eyesight deteriorates and they shake a lot. So, Sam has learnt some unusual facts about rodents. Sam doesn’t like rats especially the ones who try to eat his chickens’ legs.

Alex has learnt that worms are hermaphrodites . Which means that worms (like snails for example) have both male and female reproductive organs. Alex learnt this from Billy. Alex said “Billy told me this when I entered the playground” (Billy tells us he reads non-fiction books whilst brushing his teeth in the morning and apparently often has a new fact in the playground). Alex already knew that worms are useful as they fertilise the soil and bring oxygen into the ground.

I have learnt (from Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Universe and subsequently I googled to find out a little more) that all the gold on Earth comes from dying stars. After a few million years of generating energy stars run out of fuel and explode in what is called a Supernova. Supernova’s scatter “the neutron-rich heavy element gold throughout the galaxy” (here’s another webpage with more information). I love learning about space, it sometimes makes me feel  like my head will explode I experienced this when (I was about 10 I think) my aunt gave me a book called ‘The cosmic mind boggling book’.

I love learning new things. I also enjoy practising something to get better at it. I love learning how to do things which are not useful at all. I like learning something I think will be useful one day (how to light a fire without matches, how to do long multiplication without having to do long multiplication). I get loads of satisfaction learning a new skill so I’m able to do something easily which was complicated before. You?

Mr Sheppard

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