Senior Maths Regional Competition

Four students from Years 12 & 13 represented BRGS at a Regional Final of the UKMT (United Kingdom Mathematics Trust) Senior Team Challenge competition at Leeds University on Wednesday 14th November.

The students – Anna and Nicole (Year 12) and Felix and Mark (Year 13) - were chosen to take part by their Further Maths teachers.

They were up against 23 other schools from the Yorkshire region and competed in an early evening of challenging problems and puzzles that required them to use many different aspects of their mathematical ability.

While not finishing in the leading places that qualify for a place at the National Final, the students felt they got a lot out of the Challenge and were pleased to have taken part.

Mark said: “I really enjoy Maths and want to study it at University, so this competition was ideal for me.

“I was able to apply my Maths knowledge from this year, last year and even from lower school, so I had to call on lots of different areas in order to answer the questions.

“I also enjoyed working in a team as this allowed us to share ideas and use each other’s knowledge.

“We slipped up on a couple of the earlier rounds by rushing too much and my advice to teams in future years is to take your time and get other team members to check answers before submitting them for marking.”

Anna said: “Some of the Maths was really hard, but I found it interesting and I enjoyed the challenge.

“If I am invited to go again next year I would definitely be interested as I am very competitive and feel after another 12 months of studying Further Maths, I will have developed my knowledge and techniques which will allow me to tackle the more challenging questions with greater confidence.”

Maths teacher Mr Wilbraham, who accompanied the team to Leeds University, added.

“I was really pleased and proud of the attitude, effort and application shown by Anna, Nicole, Felix and Mark.

“They enjoyed the difficulty of the Challenge and although they were up against some tough opposition – a boy on the next table won Channel 4’s ‘Child Genius’ programme in 2015 – they gave 100% to the competition and did really well.

“Although it’s always good to win a competition, being able to use all their mathematical knowledge and to knowing when to apply it is equally important, as they will face more complex problem-solving type questions in their A Level course.

“Mark has now been to two Challenges and enjoyed them both and I hope it inspires him when he studies Maths at University.”

Here are two of the warm-up questions the students were given when they arrived at the event, ‘to get their brains working’.

Question 1

My 12-hour clock loses 6 minutes a day. I put it right at 9 o’clock this morning. After how many days will it next show the right time?

Question 2

The sum of two prime numbers is 1011. What is their product?

Contact Mr Wilbraham (msw@brgs.org.uk) if you want to know the answers.