Maths
Friday 21st May 2010
Puzzles And Challenges For Year 7 And 8
Posted by GE
On Monday 17th May, by way of a contrast to their week of exams, pupils in Year 7 and Year 8 enjoyed a programme of fun but challenging activities organised by the Maths Department. They all took part in one of three Puzzle Challenge sessions aimed at developing group problem-solving skills and a Calculator Treasure Hunt around the school grounds.In the Puzzle Challenge, the pupils were presented with a variety of elaborate puzzles that required analytical thought, manual dexterity, spatial visualisation, teamwork and cooperation to complete. The sessions were conducted by Lyndsey Ewing of the Happy Puzzle Company, an enthusiastic and inspiring instructor who really got the pupils thinking. For one of the puzzles, which involved trying to connect jigsaw pieces to form a connected road, it seemed that whichever way they put the pieces together there was always one piece left over which wouldn’t join up with the others, thus providing excellent preparation for assembling IKEA furniture. Lyndsey told the students that there were actually several thousand possible solutions to the problem, but for most of them finding just one was quite enough of a challenge.
Meanwhile those not indoors with Lyndsey were running around the grounds with a map and a calculator, trying to find the clues cunningly hidden by Mr Bindon in obscure corners of the campus. It is quite amazing how many words can be formed by the numbers on a calculator when read upside down, and the sums in the clues led the teams variously to a variety of unlikely objects, including a bell, a shell, a log, a pair of goggles, a goose and some eggs, leading eventually to a keyword which had to be brought back to base within the time limit to claim a prize. The pupils all had fun while developing teamwork and initiative, as well as the specific skills of map reading and accurate calculator use.
Lyndsey told us that she visits many schools around the country with her boxes of puzzles, and sees a wide range of levels of interest and responsiveness in different schools. She commented at the end that she thought our pupils really got a tremendous amount out of the sessions and that she was most impressed by their levels of engagement and focus. She said that they were amongst the best students she had dealt with and that she would be more than happy to come back to the school with a different set of challenges.
”The pupils had lots to say about the day’s experiences and their enthusiastic response to the challenges:
“It was challenging, but fun.”
“It made us work as a team.”
“It made me think in ways I had never thought before.”
“I really liked trying to figure out how to put the pieces together.”
“I think it has made me better at knowing how to start solving a problem.”
“I had to talk about the problems with the group and that made me sort out my ideas logically.”
“It was hard work, but I really enjoyed it.”
“I liked running around the grounds, and the clues were cool.”
“The spinning disc really surprised me – I got a shock when I looked up!”
“It was a great day – I really want to do it again.”
Thursday 6th May 2010
Olympiad And Kangaroo Success
Posted by GEThe three pupils who came top in the Intermediate Maths Challenge in February qualified for the follow on rounds, organised by the UK Maths Trust. The results of these are now through , and we are delighted to report that both Jack London (Year 11) and Johnny Shin (Year 10) were awarded a merit (the highest possible grade) for their performance in the European Kangaroo in March.
Even more outstanding is the performance of Jungwoo Rhee (Year 10) in the Hamilton Intermediate Olympiad, taken on the same day. Jungwoo's score of 49/60 placed him in the very highest echelon of participants nationally and earned him a Distinction and a silver medal.
We offer all three of them our warmest congratulations for these excellent achievements.
Wednesday 28th April 2010
Claremont Win Elmbridge Trophy
Posted by GE
On Wednesday 28th April two teams of four pupils from years 7 and 8 represented Claremont at the Elmbridge Interschool Maths Competition at Esher C of E High School. This is the first time that Claremont has taken part in the competition and the teams were keen to do well. In the first hectic round, the teams were split into pairs on opposite sides of the room and had to race from one side to the other and answer 30 mental arithmetic questions in 5 minutes. At the end of the round, the Claremont B team of James Hulls, Alex Elias, Sehyok Kwon and Donghyun Lee were in the lead with 29 points, 1 point ahead of Esher A and 4 points ahead of the Claremont A team of Sophie Stiewe, Anna Tawara, Max Traeger and Elizabeth Elias. The second round had them running to a central table with questions printed on the backs of various mathematical shapes. The more sides the shape had, the harder the question, so they had to decide quickly which shape to choose. At the end of the round the scores were still neck and neck, but with Esher slightly in front. In the third round, the teams were given 8 minutes to build an edifice at least 15 cm high out of newspapers that could support a pile of exercise books for at least 20 seconds. Again, the B team did better than the A team, tying for first place with Esher, who equalled their pile of 17 exercise books. At this stage the scores were Esher A 54, Esher B 53, Claremont B 52 and Claremont A 51.
For the last round, the highest scoring teams from each school were pitted head to head in a University Challenge style contest, with 10 points for each starter question and 5 points for each follow on question. The Claremont B team rose to this challenge with verve, winning the contest convincingly with a score of 60 points. Second place went to Rydens A with a score of 25, while Esher A dropped to third place with 15 points.
The proceedings were conducted in a lively and informal style by Mr Leslie Jackson, the Head of Maths at Esher High, who also presented the trophy to the Claremont team. Well done to all those who took part. Now let's prepare to defend the title of Elmbridge Maths Champions!
Monday 29th March 2010
A Problem For Easter
Posted by GE
This old favourite, back by popular request, is the problem for the last week of term, for which there are lots of prizes on offer.
Some Easter eggs have smaller eggs inside them, like Russian dolls. The picture above shows one possible arrangement of six Easter eggs. The large egg on the left has one smaller egg inside it, while the egg on the right has two smaller eggs inside it, one of which has an even smaller egg inside it.
The problem is this: how many different possible arrangements are there of six Easter eggs, if they are allowed to be separate from each other or nested inside each other?
(The size of the eggs doesn’t matter – they can be as big or as small as necessary to fit inside each other.)
Draw pictures. Be methodical. There will be particularly attractive Easter eggs (which may very possibly have smaller eggs inside them) for those who submit correct answers by the end of term. If I don’t get many answers by the end of term, there may even be some left for those who submit their answer at the beginning of next term.
Monday 29th March 2010
UK Team Maths Challenge
Posted by GE
On Wednesday March 10th the Claremont team of Seung Hyun Suk and Harry Normanton (Y9) and Anna Tawara and Sophie Stiewe (Y8) travelled to St Olave’s school in Orpington to represent the school at the regional final of the UK Team Maths Challenge. This is always an exciting and eagerly anticipated event at which the students have to work as a team under pressure as they pit their wits against a battery of fiendish mathematical problems and the combined brains of nineteen other school teams. In the last five years, Claremont teams had achieved a ninth, an eighth and then three consecutive seventh places in the competition, and this year’s team was determined to improve on seventh place. In most those five years the team had consisted of four boys, and the girls were keen to show that female accuracy and reliability are greater assets than male speed and flashiness.
The contest began with the group round, in which the team had to work together to solve ten problems in 45 minutes. Then came the cross number round, in which the team was split into an across pair and a down pair to solve a cross number, each pair with half the clues but unable to talk to the other pair. This is often a frustrating round in which many teams lose momentum, but the Claremont team’s careful preparation and persistence paid off and they scored an impressive 48 out of 60. At the lunch break they were comfortably in the top five and feeling confident.
In the first round of the afternoon, the head to head round, the team was pitted against four other schools consecutively to solve in pairs a series of problems in which each problem depended on the solution to the previous problem. At this point the team’s promising early form deserted them, and they made a number of avoidable mistakes, gaining no bonus points and scoring only 18 out of 60. Their earlier confidence rather dented, they knew nevertheless that they had quite a promising total score and a strong performance in the final round could see them reach their target. The final round was the always thrilling and frantic relay round, in which the two pairs in each team race to solve problems in different parts of the hall and run to have them marked so that they can then take the next problem to the other pair. As the clock ticks round, the questions get harder and the running gets more furious, so that the hall resembles a giant ant’s nest of frenetic mental and physical activity. Eventually the final whistle blew, everyone returned to their places to recover while the judges added up the scores. The Claremont team had scored a very respectable 30 out of 60 in the last round, and waited apprehensively to find out their final position.
Finally, the adjudicator announced the top three schools in reverse order and called them up to receive their prizes. The overall winners, who will go on to the national final, were the unfancied but surprisingly consistent team from Townley Girls’ Grammar School, with the host school, St Olave’s, as runners-up. But the greatest cheer of the afternoon came from the Claremont team when they learned that they had reached their target by coming sixth – the best ever performance by a Claremont team. The girls had made their point convincingly, and the whole team deserves congratulations for doing so well. They have raised the bar again. Will next year’s team be able to do better than sixth place?
Monday 29th March 2010
Results Of Intermediate Maths Challenge
Posted by GEThe maths department is delighted to announce the results of the Intermediate Maths Challenge taken on 4th February by pupils in Year 9, Year 10 and Year 11. Between them, the 46 pupils gained 24 certificates: 4 bronze, 8 silver and 12 gold.
The individual results are:
Year 11
Gold: Jack London
Silver: Henry McPherson, Megan Philip, Steve Kang, Ed Wright, Alex Young, Neil Cordon
Bronze: Louisa Dyson, Byron Duncan, Kira Gooding, Carla Letheby, Georgina Greenslade, Scott Hobbs
Year 10
Gold: Jungwwo Rhee (Best in School), Johnny Shin, Tom Butcher
Silver: Tom Guyatt, Minki Jang
Bronze: Ray Ryoo, Matthew Neat, Arun Joshi, Robert London
Year 9
Bronze: Seung Hyun Suk, Harry Normanton
As a result of their performance in the challenge, Jack London and Johnny Shin have both been invited to participate in the European Kangaroo, while Jungwoo Rhee’s score of 96 means that he has been selected for the Hamilton Intermediate Olympiad. This is an outstanding achievement, and a fitting recognition of the talent of a gifted student who has already participated in both rounds of the senior British Maths Olympiad this year. Both these events will take place in school on Thursday 18th March.
Seung Hyun Suk and Harry Normanton in Year 9 will be joined by Anna Tawara and Sophie Stiewe in Year 8 when they represent the school at the south-east regional final of the UK Team Maths Challenge on Wednesday, 10th March, at St Olave’s School at Orpington in Kent. The school has come 7th in this competition for three consecutive years, and the team are determined to improve on that position this year. Watch this space next week to find out if they have succeeded.
Monday 29th March 2010
Cambridge Success
Posted by GE
The maths department offers its warmest congratulations to Dapeng Wang, who has been offered a place at Churchill College, Cambridge, to read mathematics, starting in October. As is invariably the case with such offers, it is conditional upon Dapeng achieving grade 1 (distinction) in the STEP2 and STEP3 exams. STEP is short for 'Sixth Term Entry Paper, is the unversity's own entrance exam, which allows it to differentiate between the thousands of applicants for maths courses at Cambridge, all of whom have got 4 As at A level. It is, not sur[risingly, considerably harder than A level, and demands a thorough knowledge of the maths and further maths syllabuses as well as the analytical skill required to tackle extremely challenging and unfamiliar problems. Since there is nothing that Dapeng likes better than hard problems, he is licking his lips at the prospect of practising STEP questions between now and July. We wish him every success in the exam.
This is a strong year for Claremont in terms of mathematical potential, with three out of the eight pupils taking maths A level applying to Oxford or Cambridge. The picture above shows the three of them (Euan Philip, Dapeng Wang and Daniel Na) preparing for the Oxford Entrance exam in mathematics in December.
Monday 29th March 2010
Autumn Term Maths News
Posted by GE
Senior School pupil took part in two major maths competitions this term. On the 18th November, the team of Amn Khan (Y12), Euan Philip (Y13), Jungwoo Rhee (Y10 ) and Dapeng Wang (Y13) travelled to Surrey University where they took the bronze medal in the Surrey Final of the UK Senior Team Maths Challenge, their second podium place in two years. Amn was the highest placed girl in the contest, while Jungwoo was the youngest contestant. Earlier, on the 4th November, nine students came in during half term to sit the individual Senior Maths Challenge. Between them they gained one bronze certificate, three silvers and three golds. The golds were achieved by Johnny Shin, Dapeng Wang and Jungwoo Rhee. Dapeng and Jungwoo both also qualified for the British Mathematical Olympiad on December 3rd.
Within school, a Problem of the Day competition was initiated at the beginning of term which has kept students mentally active solving daily puzzles to win chocolate prizes. In December, the Problem of the Day was incorporated into an electronic Advent calendar with problems leading right up to Christmas Day. These have been e-mailed to all students in the Senior School, and families are invited to work together over the holidays to see if they can solve all twenty five problems and win a huge family size box of chocolates.
Thursday 4th June 2009
More Great Challenge Results
Posted by GEThe results of the Junior Maths Challenge are now here, and we can report on a very satisfying haul of 31 certificates (2 gold, 14 silver, 15 bronze) for the 50 pupils who took part. The participants were mainly from years 7 and 8, but this year the Upper Junior School was well represented with 7 pupils from Year 6 and one from Year 5, who between them achieved 5 certificates - an excellent performance!
The results are:
Year 8
Gold: Harry Normanton
Silver: Oscar Gillett, Seung Hyun Suk, Jay Atwal, Julian Deane, Bryn Williams
Bronze: Emily McPherson, Alex Munro, Kapilan Ravinthram, Peyton Cheong, TJ Kimpton, Aidan Marshall, Hannah Turner, Henry Nicholson
Year 7
Gold: Anna Tawara (Best in School)
Silver: Alex Elias, Sophie Stiewe, James Hulls, Julia Munro, Michael Upton, Julian Robinson-Tait, Matthew O'Donoghue, Tom Akeroyd
Bronze: Will Greedy, Kabir Bhandal, Luke Ravenscroft
Year 6
Silver: Rikako Nishimura
Bronze: Elizabeth Elias, Marcus Lorde, Jae Hyun Rhee
Year 5
Bronze: Julian Hitchcock
Well done to all of them!
Thursday 4th June 2009
Kangaroo Results
Posted by GENo fewer than five million students in 41 European countries took part at the end of last term in the great European Mathematical Kangaroo (or, to give it its original French name, Le Kangarou Europeen des Mathematiques). Four and a half thousand of those students were in the UK, and of those four and a half thousand, four were here at Claremont.
They are David Choi (Y11), Jack London (Y10), Tom Butcher (Y9) and Johnny Shin (Y9). All four of them receive a certificate of participation, a UKMT key ring and a solution booklet.
The top 25% of participants also receive a certificate of merit. We are particularly delighted that both Jack London and Johnny Shin qualified for a certificate of merit.
Congratulations to all four of them.
Friday 20th March 2009
Imc And Kangaroos
Posted by GEThe results of the Intermediate Maths Challenge, which was taken in February by 56 students in years 9, 10 and 11, have arrived. 39 students have received certificates for their excellent work. This is a very high proportion, showing an extremely high standard of problem-solving skill.
The results are:
Year 11
Gold: David Choi (Best in school), Ming Chen, William Choi, Jasper Tambini
Silver: Douglas Mann, Andrew Bushell, Jamie Kimber, Jacob Parker
Bronze: Cheryl Liew, Charlotte Hammond, Daniel Glyn, John Buckenham
Year 10
Gold: Jack London
Silver: Neil Cordon, Steve Kang, Scott Hobbs, Ed Wright, Alex Young, Henry McPherson, Lauren Hayhoe
Bronze: Louisa Dyson, Will Jones, Alex Cundy, Kira Gooding, Caroline Gems, Megan Philip, Louis Bissix
Year 9
Gold: Tom Butcher, Johnny Shin
Silver: Adam Dolphin, Ray Ryoo, Min Ho KIm, Katie Colwill
Bronze: Alexander Fiuza, Tom Guyatt, Arun Joshi, Angus Roberts, Matthew Neat, Will Turner
As a result of their success in the IMC, four students were invited to take part in the European Kangaroo. This is a Europe-wide maths contest for those students who do exceptionally well in the national challenges. The four students are David Choi (Y11), Jack London (Y10), Tom Butcher and Johnny Shin (Y9).
The Kangaroo took place this week on Thursday 19th March. We look forward keenly to the results, which will arrive next term.
Congratluations to all those who achieved success in the challenge, and especially to our four kangaroos!
Friday 20th March 2009
UK Team Maths Challenge Regional Final
Posted by GE
On Wednesday 11th March, four intrepid pupils from years 8 and 9 travelled to Orpington in Kent to take part in the Regional Final of the UK Team Maths Challenge organised by the UK Maths Trust. This is the fifth time Claremont has been represented at the Regional Final, and the team was determined to improve on the 7th position that we achieved last year and the year before.
Having solved a big pile of problems in the car on the way there, and after arrival at St Olave’s School, the team of Tom Butcher, Johnny Shin, Harry Normanton and Kapilan Ravinthram were well warmed up by the time the competition started. Round 1, the group round, went very well. The group was pleased to have worked out correctly the largest of the prime numbers that add up to 12345, and Harry was particularly delighted to have calculated the number of sides of the third of three regular polygons that meet at a point if one is a square and one is a pentagon.
Round 2 was the cross-number round, in which half the team had the across clues and half had the down clues but were not allowed to talk to each other. This can be a very frustrating round, given clues like “ 1 across: Highest common factor of 5 down and 8 down”. However, the boys had practised techniques for dealing with this kind of question, and managed a very respectable score of 41 out of 60. By the lunchtime break, they knew that they were in the top six of the 20 competing school teams.
After the break came round 3, the head-to-head round, in which schools were paired for each of 6 sets of 4 problems and the team split into 2 pairs, which as in the previous round, could not talk to each other. Five minutes was allowed for each set of 4 problems, in which questions 2, 3 and 4 could not be answered without knowing the answer to the previous question, which was done by the other pair. Unfortunately, in this round a high score relies on every member of the team getting their question right, and the Claremont team did not really manage this effectively. Their score of 16 out of 60 was very disappointing.
Fearing that they had slipped well down the field and had blown their chances of reaching their target, they began the final round, the relay round, determined to claw their way back up. This involved increasingly frantic running around the hall between the two halves of the team in opposite parts of the hall as each pair had to solve their question correctly before the other pair could get their next one.
The boys put in a magnificent effort to get 48 out of a possible 60 points before the final whistle blew. Sadly, when the results were announced, it transpired that although they had certainly overtaken several teams, they had not quite reached their target. They had to be content with 7th place for the third time in succession. Nevertheless, they can claim that they have maintained the school’s reputation for consistency, and, most importantly, they all had a very enjoyable day doing hard maths. Well done to all four of them.
Friday 20th March 2009
World Maths Day
Posted by GE
What an incredible result! We have smashed the record!
On World Maths Day this week, 395 Claremont pupils, along with over a million other students in 160 countries around the world, took part in a marathon series of head-to-head arithmetic games organised by Mathletics. Our target was to beat our previous record of 175,212 sums done during World Maths Day, and to contribute towards breaking the global record of 182 million sums.
Our performance exceeded all expectations: between them, the Claremont pupils did 359, 979 sums – more than double our target – and the global total was over 450 million sums! That means our pupils did on average 911 sums each! (We wonder what parents’ reactions would have been if teachers had set them 911 sums each for homework!)
The atmosphere in classrooms throughout the school was electric as the pupils strained their brains to get as many sums as they could right in each 60 second game. But it was not just a mathematical exercise. - pupils learned a lot of geography as well as they encountered opponents from different countries, which flashed up on the on-screen world map. Pupils called out the names of the countries as they found out where their opponents for each game were from, and each new one was written on the classroom board until the board was covered. In one lesson over 60 countries appeared on the board.
Prizes of chocolate Easter eggs were offered to all pupils who did more than 1000 sums (an offer which the maths department are now regretting – it is going to be very expensive!), with bigger eggs for those with scores of over 2000 and giant eggs for scores over 5000.
Four students in the senior school managed to notch up more than 10000 sums:
Jessica McCarthy (10414), Ava Mason (11221), Kapilan Ravinthram (12386) and Riley Clements (14082). Ava Mason was also one of four pupils who managed a high score of 60 or more sums per minute, the others being Johnny Shin (61) , Kaori Niwa (62) and Arun Joshi (62). One of the really valuable spin-offs of this amazing event is the improvement in mental arithmetic shown by virtually everyone who takes part. The computer calculates the percentage improvement of every participant by comparing the average score for their first 10 games with the average score of their last ten games. The average improvement of our pupils was 159%, which means that they are all on average more than twice as good at sums as they were at the beginning of the week. Some pupils have shown quite incredible gains: ten pupils improved by over 700%, while the top three improved by more than 1000%. They are Julian Deane (1400%), Holly Barnard (1700%),and Noah Jankel (2200%).
Well done Claremont!
Thursday 15th January 2009
Introduction Of Modular GCSE Maths Syllabus
Posted by GEIn the light of government imposed changes to the GCSE Maths examination structure, the Maths Department has re-examined the options available to students preparing for their Maths GCSE in years 10 and 11.
For a number of years there has existed a choice between syllabus A, a traditional course leading to a single final examination at the end of Year 11, and syllabus B, a modular course with module exams spaced out over three sessions in years 10 and 11. Until last year, we have always prepared all our pupils for the syllabus A course. Our results have been extremely good and we felt that the course suited our students well. However, recent changes to the structure of the examination have caused us to re-evaluate that judgement.
One of the changes, which we welcome, is the removal of coursework from the exam specification. The other, which we have serious concerns about, is the removal of the intermediate tier of assessment. This latter change forces us to choose when entering our pupils for the exam between the foundation tier, at which the highest available grade is a C, and the higher tier, which covers grades D to A*. This is fine for students in sets 1 and 2, but for students in sets 3 and 4 it imposes a difficult dilemma. Should we try to cover all the syllabus including the material required for and A* grade, which realistically most of the students will not be able to follow, or should we concentrate on making sure they have covered all the material necessary for a good grade B thoroughly, thereby leaving the A and A* material uncovered, and place them in a situation in which they will only be able to attempt about 16 of the 24 questions on the exam paper?
Because of these changes, we have for the first time this year decided to prepare pupils in sets 3 and 4 in year 10 for the syllabus B examination. Since September they have been working through the Number and Algebra module in preparation for the first module examination, which will take place on Tuesday 3rd March. It will consist of two 45 minute papers, one without calculator and one with calculator. The next module examination, consisting of two 30 minute papers, will be on Thursday 11th June. We anticipate good results for them in these module exams, but in the event that any pupil does not reach a high enough grade they will have the option of retaking the module at a later date. This is one advantage of the modular system.
In September, when we made the decision to change courses for sets 3 and 4 in Year 10, we decided to prepare the pupils in Year 11 set 4 for the modular course as well, fitting all three modules into one year. They took the first module exam in November, and received the results this week. I am pleased to report that they all did extremely well. Indeed the results exceeded our highest expectations, with all pupils scoring over 70% and two gaining full marks. This success is largely due to the efforts of Mrs Philip, who worked very hard to ensure that the module syllabus was covered thoroughly, drilling the class in the material and giving them a great deal of practice on past papers. It is also a reflection of the fact that the pupils only had to study a limited area of the maths syllabus and were not daunted by the sheer scale of the whole syllabus. We have noticed how much the pupils’ confidence has been boosted by their success and how much better motivated they are now to work on the next module. This encourages us to believe that we have made the right decision for the pupils in Year 10 sets 3 and 4.
Thursday 15th January 2009
Smc And Bmo
Posted by GE
The results of the Senior Maths Challenge, taken on 6th November by 47 pupils in years 10, 11, 12 and 13, arrived last month. Fifteen pupils achieved certificates:Year 12
Gold Dapeng Wang
SilverEuan Philip
Bronze Katherine Coby
Year 11
Silver Ming Chen, David Choi
Bronze Jasper Tambini, Charlotte Hammond, Yoo Jin Choi, John Buckenham, Jamie Kimber
Year 10
Silver Louis Bissix
Bronze Henry McPherson, Carla Letheby, Steve Kang, Keitaro Tsuji
In addition to his Gold Certificate and certificate for Best in School, Dapeng Wang also qualified for the British Mathematical Olympiad. This took place on 4th December, when Dapeng wrestled for three and a half hours with six extremely challenging problems. Despite some penetrating analysis and adroit problem solving, Dapeng did not quite manage to gain a distinction in the Olympiad this time. He is already preparing eagerly for the next one.
Thursday 6th November 2008
Outstanding Result In Senior Team Challenge
Posted by GE
On Wednesday 5th November, following their strong performance in qualifying sessions, four pupils from Year 11 and Year 12 took part in the Regional Final of the UK Senior Team Maths Challenge. This annual event, run by the UK Maths Trust, was held at Royal Holloway College in Egham, and pitted our team against pupils from 13 other qualifying schools from Surrey, Middlesex, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. Teams consist of 4 pupils, of which no more than two can be from Year 13. The Claremont team comprised Daniel Na, Euan Philip and Dapeng Wang from Year 12 with David Choi from Year 11.The contest was divided into three forty minute rounds. The first round was a straightforward problem solving session in which ten questions had to be solved by the team working together. None of the problems was easy, but the team got five of them completely correct to find themselves in the top five schools at the end of round one.
The second round was the dreaded cross-number round. This is like a crossword but with numbers instead of letters, and all the clues linked together, as in these examples:
12 down: Half the lowest common multiple of 6 across and 8 across
8 across: Sum of the prime factors of 15 down.
This is hard enough, but it is made even harder by dividing the team into two pairs, one with only the across clues and the other with only the down clues, and then separating them so that the two pairs cannot speak to each other! Despite the seeming impossibility of this task, our team rose brilliantly to the challenge and completed the cross-number with a minute to spare. They achieved the highest score of all the participating schools to move them up into the top three.
They began round three with victory in sight and set to with real determination. This was the relay round, in which the team was again split into pairs who were each given two problems. One pair was given problems 1 and 3 while the other was given problems 2 and 4. But the answer to problem 4 could only be found using the answer to problem 3, which in turn depended on the answer to problem 2, which itself required the answer to problem 1. As in the cross-number round, the two pairs could not speak to each other, they could only pass written answers across. There were six 4 stage tasks of this type, each of which had to be solved within 6 minutes, with bonus marks for solving them in less than 4 minutes. Our team did superbly to gain the bonus marks on one of the tasks, and failed by just 2 seconds to do it a second time. They then had a disaster on the next one, failing to score any points at all. However, they picked themselves up to do respectably on the last few problems, and it looked as if they might have done enough to reach first place. But, when the scores were added up, it emerged that in a very tight bunch at the top of the field they had narrowly been edged out by a very strong team from Merchant Taylors' School in Northwood.
The boys were disappointed not to win and go on to the National Final in February, but they were still justifiably proud of their performance. This was the school's first ever appearance in this event, and to reach second place in such prestigious company as this at their first attempt is an outstanding achievement. They all deserve warm congratulations for such a cool display of steady brainpower under pressure, and for setting an extremely high standard for next year's team to follow.
The photographs show the team practising in the school library and receiving their runners-up medals after the contest at Royal Holloway.