Tower Hamlets kids work out how many feet Pied Piper’s rats had

Working out how many feet the rats had and how many the children had in the Pied Piper of Hamlin fable was the brain-teaser schoolkids in London’s East End had to fathom.

Pupils from 16 primary schools taking part in the Tower Hamlets Education Business Partnership’s ‘2013 Number Challenge’ have been working on numerical challenges, with their ‘maths mentor’ business volunteers from the City who come into school each week to help them.

Six teams who made it to last week’s finals at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Bishopsgate were told the story of the Pied Piper, where the townsfolk heard 600 feet leaving Hamelin.

They had to work out the combinations of children and legs that would add up to 600.

Five joint winners were Ayesha Siddiqa and Khadija Tuzzuhura, from Bethnal Green’s Kobi Nazrul Primary, and Hanifa Begum, Riva Razwan and Saniya Ahmed, from Whitechapel’s St Paul’s school.

They received trophies and will be taken to Clare College, Cambridge, next term—to see the Maths department at work!

The City volunteers have worked out they spend 7,500 hours a year helping Tower Hamlets schoolkids with numeracy, according to the maths.