Back in November, about 60,000 children from all over the UK from years 5 and 6 took part in the Mathematical Association’s 25th year of the ‘Primary Mathematics Challenge’. A total of 4,500 children made it through to the bonus round, with just 264 of these managing to achieve the top gold award.
Emma Aslett, Welland Park Academy teacher and Ahead 4 Numbers business owner, invited local primary schools to send their best mathematicians and problem solvers to be trained for the challenge last November.
Eleven local primaries took up the offer this year and a total of 80 children took part in the challenge. 11 children made it through to the bonus round which is the most that have got through in the five years that Emma has been running the event. After some more intense training with the children that made it through, the bonus round challenge was a great success with over half the children securing awards.
Lucas Azzouzi (Little Bowden primary School), Thomas Bradley (Clipston Primary School) and Leo Gamble (Market Harborough C of E Primary Academy) achieved bronze awards. Todd Knowles (Ridgeway Primary Academy) and Robert Swienton (Kibworth Primary School) scooped up silver awards and Sebastian Karanjit (St Joseph’s Catholic Voluntary Academy) amazed us all by scoring full marks in the challenge and grabbed the gold award!
Emma said, “I was so excited when I found out that so many children had made it through to the bonus round. The most we have ever had in the past is five. I had great fun training the children for the event and I know they had as much fun as me too.
"It is a lot of hard work organising the event each year, but it is totally worth it.The best part of my job is to watch young mathematicians thrive and enjoy learning and problem solving. It is so interesting observing how their brains tackle problems in different ways. I have been working with our gold award winner, Sebastian, for a few years now and he is a remarkable young mathematician. I would like to thank Welland Park Academy for once again funding and hosting the event.”
Sebastian said, “It was my first Maths Challenge. It was quite difficult and I was very nervous because I wanted to do well. Emma was very reassuring and it was a blast; I am already looking forward to doing it again next year.”
If you would like to see how you would get on with the challenge, past papers and solutions can be found on the website: www.primarymathschallenge.org.uk
The maths challenge event will return to Welland Park Academy later this year.