Westbury school’s mile of pennies

Matravers School in Westbury celebrated the NSPCC Number Day by attempting to create a Mile of Pennies on Tuesday 3rd December.

The focus for students at Matravers School was working with money calculations in all subjects and lessons.

The main fundraising effort took the form of attempting to create a mile of pennies around the school netball courts. Year 8 pupils enjoyed discussing the maths of distance and estimating whilst they worked on laying out pennies, and counting them back in, in hundreds!

Students successfully covered a distance of 113.5 metres – roughly £57 of coppers and small change! The students successfully calculated that they would need to lay 17 laps of the netball courts to cover a mile. A lot of maths was done in working out this challenge.

The national schools fundraising event is for children and young people of all ages. Since it was launched in 2000, NSPCC Number Day has raised over £1.1million for the charity’s work with vulnerable children across the UK.

The aim of Number Day is to: • Make Maths fun and instigate a positive ‘can do’ attitude towards it • Raise money to protect children who need our help • Raise awareness about the work of the NSPCC.