Winning Formula
We are extremely proud of our Bosworth maths team who recently won the County Regional Final Day of the UKMT National maths competition. Students: Baba Bob-Soile, John Cheng (top row), Chong Liu, Ciel Zhao (bottom row) made up the winning team, pictured here with Head of Maths, Mrs Gill Hills.
Every year the UK Mathematics Trust (UKMT) holds various maths competitions, this one the Senior Team Maths Challenge is aimed at Year 11 -13 students. The UKMT is a registered charity whose aim is to advance the education of children in mathematics. Last academic year over 600,000 students from 4,000 schools took part in the UK’s biggest national maths competition.
Twenty-three schools and colleges from the County got through to the Regional Final Day of this competition which took place at the University of Northampton.
The students competed in three rounds:
Group round: to answer 10 questions in 40 minutes. The teams must decide on their own strategy, work in pairs, as a group or individually.
Crossnumber: a mathematical crossword puzzle with one pair from the team solving the across clues and the other pair solving the down clues.
Mini-relay: members of the team have to answer mathematical questions, but the information passed from other members of the team is needed to solve them completely.
Every year there is extremely strong local competition and we are very pleased to have won this regional heat, our worthy opponents Oundle School and Kings School Peterborough came joint second. We are now through to the National Final which is to be held in London on the 1st February 2012. Good luck team we are all supporting you!
Geodesic Dome bought to life
The students’ were given the task of building their own geodesic dome on a slightly smaller scale and performed with wine gums and sticks (pictured opposite). They were given measurements and they had to work out how many sticks were required and how they would piece together.
As they began building the structure they also began to realise they needed to add more strength to the bottom of the geodesic dome it in order to make it more secure. This adaptation allowed the student’s ‘Gherkin’ structure to hold not one large maths book but two! The students expected the structure to hold one book approximate weight 2kg, but they were pleased when it was able to hold two.
A Level Maths teacher Mrs Jane Deery believes:
"Pure maths will be at the heart of any building and it is important for students to recognise the importance of this within any design. To make an unusual structure such as ‘the gherkin’ a geodesic dome the architect has to consider diameters and mathematical formulas involved. It is also a really fun exercise that the students take on with great enthusiasm."
Students pictured above in order of appearance left to right, back row: Michael Mang, Kevin Chan, Samuel Ogbeha, Daisy Yuen, Xuan Bach Bui, front row: Sonic Cheung, David Olatunji and Gilmore Wellio
Maths Challenge
Last November, our Bosworth team: Joshua Ukpaka, Wayne Chan, Anastasia Venetska and Chong Liu took part in the Team Maths Challenge at Northampton University. There were 20 teams in total from schools all over Northamptonshire. Bosworth achieved third place in the competition and all those who took part agreed it was a really fun afternoon and worth attending in the future.
The students took part in three rounds:
Round 1 was answering ten questions in 40 minutes, working as a team.
Round 2 was working in pairs to fill in a crossword using numerical answers. One pair had to work on the across clues, the other pair on the down clues, but without communicating with each other.
Round 3 was a relay competition; one pair answered a question, passed the answer to the other pair to use for their working out and then returned their answer for the next question and so on.
Congratulations to the students involved on achieving third place, pictured above with Mrs Gill Hills (Head of Maths).
Students take up mathematical challenge
Minh Trang Nguyen pictured with her Olympiad award – an exceptional achievement
Currently at Bosworth Independent College 174 of our 192 A Level students choose to study Maths at A Level, with many of these students also opting for A Level Further Maths. Last year, our students achieved a 100% pass rate at A Level in these subjects, with 73% of students gaining an A grade and a further 18% a B grade.
Therefore, it is fair to say Maths is a core subject at Bosworth, and because of the number of students we have studying this subject at A Level we are able to offer 16 different units out of a possible 18 available.
To incorporate this number of units we actually have 51 different A Level groups with an average of 8 students in each group. Which obviously means timetabling this subject in itself proves a mathematical challenge! However, having 18 maths teachers on hand helps.
The students can choose statistics, mechanics or decision maths to go alongside the compulsory pure maths units and with students from 22 different nationalities opting for maths each Bosworth student has a very unique learning experience.
Furthermore, this year we entered a number of students into the Maths Challenge competition which is set for AS Level students. Of those who participated; eight students achieved gold, thirteen silver and four bronze medals.
Three of our gold medal winners qualified to enter the first round of the Maths Olympiad and one of these students, Minh Trang Nguyen, won a place in round 2 of the Olympiad from which the National team is chosen. This is an exceptional achievement and we are eagerly awaiting her results.
