Welcome to my web site!

My name is Mark McCourt, I am currently teaching secondary school mathematics at Toot Hill Comprehensive, Bingham, Nottinghamshire, UK. and am involved in the pastoral system there through my role as Deputy Head of Year 10. I am also a published writer and occasionally tutor degree level mathematics.

I intend on building up a selection of resources for secondary school maths teachers. I have started work on this, but I shall do the bulk of it during summer vacation. The "Teachers Page" link takes you there.

The poetry page links you to some of my own poems - they stem mostly from my 1998 book "May", but there are a few from my forthcoming sequel "October".

One of my main passions in life is mathematics and the predictions that it makes about our universe. The universe essay is my most recent writing project. I am trying to write a brief history of the universe aimed at the teenage audience. It is a long way from completion, but the skeleton of it is here. I need to thank those students at Toot Hill that have given me the inspiration to write this piece. I am so glad that they are interested in such a fascinating subject.

During 1997, I worked on a mathematical model that would simulate biological evolution. I did this by writing a Genetic Algorithm computer program. After months of writing and editing, the simulation worked very successfully. GA's have never been used for this purpose before, and several experts in this field said that the project would not be possible. I take pride in proving them wrong!! The link takes you to a shortened version of the book I wrote.