Mr Jeffryes (Mathematics Teacher)

This year the postponed Junior Mathematical Challenge (due to take place in April) was a little different as, for the first time, it could not be held at school, but it still went ahead online!  Year 7 students had to do a practice paper and score highly enough on it to qualify for the real thing.

As a reminder, the challenge is a 60-minute, multiple-choice competition aimed at students across the UK. It encourages mathematical reasoning, precision of thought, and fluency in using basic mathematical techniques to solve interesting problems with no calculator allowed!  The problems on the Junior Mathematical Challenge are designed to make students think and are not about lucky guessing. Most are accessible, yet still challenge those with more experience.

To give you an idea of one of the questions from this year’s online paper…

Four different positive integers have a product of 110.  What is the sum of the four integers?

A 19 B 22 C 24 D 25 E 28

Once again, the results for the Year 7 and 8 who took part were strong, with one gold, two silver and ten bronze certificates from Year 7 and one gold, three silver and 18 bronze from Year 8, with everyone else who took part gaining a certificate of participation. The girls will get the certificates from their teachers soon.

Special congratulations go to Martha Barnes and Sanvi Singh for achieving their Silver awards and to Danae Karavaggelis who got a Gold Award and Best in Year (when in Year 7) and to the then Year 8 students, Eloise Jones, Sarah Pepper and Amelia Mead who also gained Silver awards with Amelia Jones achieving Gold and Best In School certificates. Unfortunately, the UKMT stated that the follow on ‘Kangaroo’ rounds for the highest scorers could not go ahead this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Follow the live department updates @BGS_Maths here.