Magnificent Maths

Despite the interruptions caused by Covid-19 and the national lockdown this year, our junior school pupils have really risen to the challenge of continuing their journey in mathematics. We have had fantastic numbers of pupils participating in maths challenges this year, pulling in a brilliant haul of medal certificates.

by MR CUNNINGHAM

n November, we had 128 pupils

Ifrom Lower Two and Upper Two taking part in the annual primary maths challenge, aimed at the top Year 6 mathematicians in the country. Mitchell Harreld (U2C) and James Biddick (U2C) were top scorers in the school, achieving the gold certificate, alongside 12 others. There were also 38 silver and 61 bronze certificates. Eight of our gold winners were invited to take part in the bonus round in February; the questions were incredibly challenging, but our pupils excelled once again and should be very proud of themselves. Special mention has to go to William Ahmad (U2A), who achieved an exceptional 84%.

In April, 56 of our magnificent mathematicians joined over 300,000 pupils from across the country, to complete the annual UK junior mathematics challenge. If they thought the primary maths challenge was tough, this was on another level. Despite being designed and pitched at pupils in Year 8 (Fourth Form), the boys and girls in the junior school excelled themselves again and we achieved a gold certificate, 12 silver and 9 bronzes. Yi-Ren Wong (U2W) did exceptionally well to achieve the gold and made it through to the Junior Kangaroo round for the top 1,200 pupils across the country. Sadly, the results are due to be released in the middle of July, and so Yi-Ren will not know his results until September.

The newly introduced Times Tables Rockstars has been incredibly popular among pupils: honing their times tables speeds and competing against each other. Across the school, pupils’ times table speeds have improved dramatically, and we have 14 pupils who have reached ‘Rock Hero’ status, including three pupils from Form One! To reach the prestigious ‘Rock Hero’ status, a pupil needs to be able to correctly answer more than 60 questions in one minute. Until the final few weeks of term, Joseph Lomas (U2C) had managed to hold onto top spot in the school all year with a mightily impressive speed of 0.55 seconds per question. However, after joining the school in the summer term, Anthony Tan (U1R) has romped to the top spot in audacious fashion with a ridiculously fast speed of 0.44 seconds per question. I am also incredibly proud to say that Exeter Junior School are currently the fastest school in Exeter with a mean speed of 2.82 seconds per question - four tenths faster than our closest competitor!