Students at David Nieper Academy have taken part in a project to design a bid to host a Mini Olympics event here in Alfreton.

The project is part of the academy’s employer challenge programme, where students are tasked with working in teams to apply their classroom learning to real life situations that arise in the world of work.

Inspired by a tour of Alfreton Leisure Centre, Year 7 students were asked to use their mathematics skills and creativity to present a winning bid to a panel of judges.

The project was designed by Ms Victoria Fritche, from the Academy’s Mathematics Department; who challenged the students to apply their skills to mathematical scenarios that face an Olympic committee.

These included budgeting and logistical problem solving, working out profits from ticket sales, calculating calories burnt by athletes, working out the areas and perimeter of sports spaces and comparing historical Olympic data to current data.

Ms Fritche said: “We are in an Olympic year, and The Games will be dominating news headlines. We wanted to capture the excitement and ambition of a global event and demonstrate to students that what they are learning in maths class has real life relevance in planning and budgeting for events such as the Olympic Games.

“The employer challenge programme is an excellent opportunity for our students to deepen their learning and it is really important that our youngest students start to feel connected to their community and local business during these early years of their education.”

Alex Greaves, manager of Alfreton Leisure Centre, added: “We were really impressed by the enthusiasm of the students and how they applied themselves to the task in hand.

“Due to Covid this has been our first employer challenge with the academy and it’s fantastic to see how classroom lessons can be made aspirational, and skills made relevant to high profile commercial ventures such as putting together an Olympics bid.

“We very much look forward to working with the Academy on another event.”

The winning teams were as follows:

• Mathemactives – Gold
• Mini Gymnastic Superstars – Silver
• Mathlympians – Bronze

There were a number of outstanding performances from individual students including:

• Maycee-Lu Forbes – Outstanding presenting skills and constant enthusiasm towards the project
• Lucy Cowlard – Resilience and working solidly throughout the project
• Chelsea Dodd – Excellent leadership
• Owen Starbuck – Working consistently and leading his peers throughout the project
• Sophie Rowe – Presentation Skills
• Freya Baldwin- Supporting her peers and being a fabulous project manager
• Cody Caddick – Determination and a want to succeed
• Ana Pana – Outstanding team and constant drive and motivation
• Jasmine Ellis – Outstanding team and constant drive and motivation
• Sophia Rowe – Outstanding team and constant drive and motivation