At Henry Cort Community College it is not just the maths department that teaches quadratic functions.
Indeed, teachers from the PE, design technology, science and IT departments all work together with their maths counterparts to teach the subject in a way that interests the students.
Henry Cort, in Fareham, is a specialist sports college, so it seems natural to video basketball throws and use movement analysis software to plot the parabolic trajectories.
In design technology the students build adjustable table tennis ball launchers and analyse the track of the balls.
In the maths lesson, the students use dynamic geometry software to plot quadratic functions that match the flight of the ball, providing a feel for how the various coefficients affect the shape of the graph.
Later the pupils go on to look at the science behind projectile movement.
