National Young Mathematicians’ Award
Mrs K. Coldwell, KS5 and G&T Leader, Maths, writes:
On Thursday 8th November, four mathematically talented Year 8 students took part in the National Young Mathematicians’ Awards Round 1 at the Explore Learning Centre in Watford. The competition was based on a set of problems using dice and the sums which are possible when certain conditions were met. Catherine Cranham, Nathan Davies, Benjamin Hahn and Aamina Hussain set to work enthusiastically, making good progress. The Centre Director, who ran and marked the competition, gave the following feedback:
“A huge well done to Catherine, Aamina, Nathan and Ben! We were so impressed with their problem-solving skills, and the clear and logical reasoning they presented surrounding aspects of the challenge. Of the four Secondary Schools that competed, we are only able to take through two for Round 2. Unfortunately, the Stanborough team did not make it through to Round 2 this year. Although they scored incredibly well for the “teamwork criteria”, they just weren’t quite able to score enough in the “Mathematical criteria”. They in fact scored the maximum points possible for the teamwork criteria! I was so incredibly impressed by their dynamic team, I could hardly walk away as I wanted to watch them work. You have a natural born leader in Catherine! Ben and Nathan were keenly and meticulously working through each solution and Aamina seemed to be the calm, reflective and systematic glue that held them together! Some advice we would love to give the team going forward would be to make sure they manage time effectively. This will ensure they have enough time to maximise their work on trickier challenges, as these have the largest amount of points to be earned! They only missed out by the finest of margins!”
Although it would have been nice to go through to Round 2, the team were nevertheless brilliant ambassadors for Stanborough School and should be very proud of all that they achieved. Hopefully they will be inspired to continue solving problems, puzzles and challenges for fun, in their maths lessons and in real-life situations.
