A first for The Perse in national maths competition
Perse mathematicians were equal to the task as they were crowned Team Maths Challenge national champions for the first time.
The team of Daniel, Yixuan (both Year 9), Jason and William (both Year 8) saw off competition from around 70 other teams who had qualified from their respective regional rounds, plus seven guest groups from China, to take the title in the national finals at London’s Royal Agricultural Halls.
Organised by the UK Mathematics Trust, the finals saw teams embark on five rounds, starting with designing a poster on the geometry of plants, based on pre-prepared material along with additional questions given on the day.
The group circus round challenged pupils to move between different stations trying to solve as many puzzles as possible, while the rest of the competition saw the teams split into two pairs.
They faced the shuttle, where pairs take turns to answer questions, with the answer from one pair being needed by the other pair. Speed and precision were vital with bonus points for finishing within a set time limit.
The fourth round was the crossnumber – a crossword where all the answers were numbers – before the relay, in which the two pairs are seated on opposite sides of the hall and pass questions to each other, rounded off the event.
After five hours of competition, the Perse team narrowly took the honours after achieving full marks on the group circus, crossnumber and poster rounds, dropping just two points on the shuttle and narrowly running out of time to complete the final relay.
Perse maths teacher Vesna Kadelburg, who co-ordinated the team, said: “The Perse has never won this competition in over 20 years that it has been running, so this in an amazing achievement.”
The pupils were also thrilled with their success in the Team Maths Challenge, following on from scoring 234 out of 236 in winning their regional qualifier in March.
Yixuan said: “We were surprised to win because we dropped a few marks we could have got, but overall, we thought that we had done quite well. My favourite round was the poster round because it involved doing research on topics we might not have necessarily seen before and I enjoyed seeing our finished poster.”
Daniel added: “I enjoyed the training sessions in the weeks leading up to the final, working together as a team and planning our strategy.”
William commented: “I enjoyed the team aspect of this competition as it allowed you to communicate with others and if you made a mistake your team-mates could correct you. My favourite round was the crossnumber as there were lots of different options of questions to do at once.”