Maths

Year 11 GCSE Maths exam breakfast revision

Before every exam paper in Maths GCSE, students had the opportunity to have breakfast with Maths teachers in the restaurant and do quick warm-up questions for both, non-calculator and calculator skills depending on which paper they were doing. It was so great to see our Year 11 students engaging and working until the last minute before their exams, and this is why the majority of them had smiles on their way out of the sports hall. There were posters with pictures of graphs, written formulae, and quick reminders all over the restaurant for students to have a visual reminder before the exam, and many of Year 11s were engaging with these and had discussions about various topics. 

The Junior Maths Challenge Online Competition 2023!

The Junior Maths Challenge Competition provides an opportunity for our young mathematicians to challenge themselves and explore problem solving questions under exam conditions. The students who participate in this challenge are very brave as it is an optional process. As always the year 7s were new to the challenge whereas most of the year 8s already participated last year, so had a slight advantage. I will now relate the journey to you in stages:

Principled, Open-minded, Thinking Mathematicians being chosen 

In April 2023, one hundred year 7 and year 8 students were selected by their Maths teachers to take part in this year's Junior Maths Challenge online competition. Students were told that based on their performance in Maths lessons, completing the challenge would be good to help to develop their problem solving technique and it would be a good experience for them. It was optional, they did not have to do this as the understanding was it was a challenging time and we did not want this to be an added pressure. They had to be decisive and they also needed the support of their parents…

Knowledgeable Inquirers demonstrating their Caring profile by helping each other…

85 students took up the offer and joined  the virtual Google Classroom that had all the information required to prepare, practise and complete the challenge. They had to work independently, to cipher through various links to download online practise past papers, and plan study and revision sessions on their schedules to help them to feel a little more confident when completing the challenge. As a facilitator it was very inspiring to watch and listen to the Year 8 students take on the questions of the other Year 7 students and answer them very well! They were very good communicators!

Principled, Open-minded, Balanced, Risk-takers at work

The next phase was to complete the challenge. On Wednesday 26th of April 2022, between 9am and 11am, approximately 100 students completed the Maths Challenge in the Lecture Theatre at The Leigh Academy! This is the greatest number of students we have ever had to take part in the Junior Maths Challenge Competition. The increase in numbers had to do with some students who were inspired by others and turned up on the day asking for permission to be allowed to do the challenge! They did this process really well. 

The Results Day!

On Friday 21st of May, the results came and they were the best that we have ever achieved in the history of completing the Junior Maths Challenge Competition at The Leigh Academy! We had a total of 16 Bronze Awards and 14 Silver Awards and 1 Gold Award! Please find outlined below the Top Achievers for this year's Maths Challenge:

Bronze Awards were given to: Lucy, Alexander, Ronny, Rachael, Ethan, Max, Sudiska, Blu, Maelis, Monioluwani, Sophie, Riddhi, Michelle, Iyanju, Ikenna, and Thomas.

Silver Awards were given to: Harvey, Tsz Kit, Ozlan, Michal, Aleksander, Samuel, Darius, Freddy, Adshaya, Priyaa, Harry, Elizabeth, Raheem, and Daniel 

The first Gold Medal was awarded to none other than Angelica!!

She qualified for the follow-on round; The pink Kangaroo Challenge which she completed on Wednesday 14th of June! Well done Angelica! We are very proud of you!

Well done to all the students who participated. When you reflect on this experience I want you all to understand that you are all very resilient, responsible, open-minded, and knowledgeable and you made it to the end of a very challenging Maths challenge competition. You have made your parents proud, your teachers proud and yourselves proud. 

We are also thankful for the ICT platform of Google Classroom as we would never be able to communicate with over 100 students and parents so efficiently throughout this process. And last of all but not least the parents; throughout our experience of facilitating this challenge, we have never seen the parental involvement so high! It has played a massive part in motivating the students and helping them to improve their problem-solving skills in Maths which are essential for us to lead safer and better standards of living in the future. 

Thank you so much for this and long may it continue.