Tuesday, 24 March 2015

Form 4 Maths Challenge


The Further Maths Support Programme Year 10 Maths Feast
2015
The Downs School, Compton     Monday 23rd March 2015

For 2015 this team event consisted of six rounds, with no overall winner announced, rather certificates awarded for winning a round.
The rounds were named after the courses of a meal, namely an ‘Amuse-bouche’ (a matching activity in three parts); an ‘Hors d’oeuvre’ (comparisons – calculating which result of a pair of calculations is the larger, or whether they are equal); an ‘Entrée’ (a new area of mathematics to read about then answer questions on); a ‘Main’ (a selection of problems to solve, with particular emphasis in the mark scheme on clear explanation of method); a ‘Dessert’ (making and stacking Columbus cubes); and finally ‘Petit-Fours’ (a series of questions with the answer to each one needed for the following question, with the team splitting into pairs, and bonus marks awarded for correct answers in a row). No artificial devices, such as calculators, were allowed, so the teams had to use their grey cells to the full!
Sixteen teams of four from West Berkshire took part, two of the eighteen entries having turned back due to the traffic on the A34 getting up to its usual tricks.

The Pangbourne team comprised Ian Blanch, Woody Chapman, Josh Orton and Jack Rogers. The format is that the accompanying teacher with a group sits with a team from another school and marks their work. The lady from Cranford House who sat with our team was most complimentary about our team’s general attitude and disposition, and she also praised their high level of teamwork.
In a highly competitive atmosphere and tight time restriction for each round, teams tied for first place in several rounds but we were delighted to be declared sole winners of the ‘Hors d’oeuvre’, one of the trickiest rounds of the competition, with some of the calculations involved being ones for which a calculator would normally be used.

The competition was extremely well organised and much appreciated by all the teams involved.

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