Maths Mastery

At the beginning of November, the whole school took part in Maths Week England. During the week, pupils experienced a variety of fun maths activities, including a maths trail around the school grounds. Children were encouraged to share their mathematical understanding and discuss different ways to solve problems. Year 5 and 6 pupils enjoyed trying out some maths puzzles set by Douglas Buchanan via Zoom (Douglas runs the maths challenges at other schools that we usually take part in). In addition, 41 children from Years 5 and 6 competed in the Primary Maths Challenge, a national competition designed to make pupils think outside of the box. 5 pupils were awarded gold certificates, 3 silver and 8 bronze. Early Years played plenty of maths games, embarked on a shape hunt and sang number songs.

We encourage challenge and aspiration in St Piran’s pupils and these are frequently shown in our commitment to quick recall of times tables through the Times Tables Rock Stars programme. Our current whole school average rock speed is an impressive 3.33 seconds a question with a 92% accuracy rate. We also took part in some competitions – an inter-clan “Battle of the Bands” and a National Rock Out. The winning clan in the Battle of the Bands was West and the winning class in the Rock Out was 4T. Although there have been no in-person maths challenges this year, it was lovely to see a team of Year 2 and Year 4 pupils compete via Zoom in the Rotary Club Mighty Maths and Mathemagician Competitions. The children worked as a team to answer some very tricky maths problems and had great fun in the process! In addition, some Years 3 and 4 children took part in the First Mathematics Challenge. This is a national competition run by the Mathematical Association. Our children did brilliantly in this challenge, with 7 Gold Certificates, 14 Silver and 2 Bronze. Special congratulations to Antony Vazhappilly who scored an amazing 100% in the challenge. > Mrs Wadsworth, Head of Maths