2020 has had its obvious issues but despite this there have been a number of successes in Mathematics at Burnside High School.

· Seven students in the top 30 in the New Zealand Junior Mathematics Competition

· Three prizes, including a Medal, in the Australian Mathematics Competition

· 13 High Distinctions in the Australian Mathematics Competition.

· First and second places in the CMA Year 11 Calculator Competition

· Ethan Ng, 13SRTwas a member of the New Zealand team which competed in the 2020 International Mathematical Olympiad

· Oliver Fan, 12NMDT, won a medal in the Australian Mathematics Competition

A number of the regular mathematical competitions did not take place this year. In the competitions that did proceed, Burnside had a number of successes.

National Junior Mathematics Competition

In 2020 this competition was sat by more than 6 000 Year 9, 10 and 11 students from more than 100 New Zealand Schools. In 2020 awards are given to students who finish in the Top 30 at each level. Burnside High School has had a very good record in this competition, and 2020 was no exception.

Top 30 in New Zealand

Year 9: Raghav Bhutani 9WWAJ, Daniel Lough 9SOSC, Haasini Mantena 9WLWI

Year 10: Annabelle Brownsword 10WWTA, Woojin Song 10WRIC

Year 11: Ian Han 11NLNC, Ritvik Sharma 11NSTK

Merit Awards Saissha Gupta, 9NHDC, Connie Li 9SOSC, Yash Naicker 9NMDA, Tsutsui Neo 9WLWI, Catherine Wan 9NMDA, Erin Yamada 9SOSC, Minami Nakamura 10WSUM, Kyung-min Cho 11NELT, Jacky Zhang 11SPHC

Year 11 Success

Each year the Canterbury Mathematical Association runs a Year 11 Calculator competition. This is an event for teams of 4 students who answer 4 rounds of increasingly difficult questions. This year there were 14 teams entered with two of those from Burnside High School. The two Burnside teams finished in first and second places.

The winning team, made up of Ritvik Sharma 11NSTK, Helaman Hatcher 11NCGR, Mark Chang 11NLNC and James Wang 11WWIC finished with a total score of 133 out of a possible 140.

In second place the team consisting of Perry Doan 11WDNK, Cole Stevens 11SPHC, Janvi Puri 11NLNC and Tim Fisher-Taylor 11SPHC finished with a score of 132.

Also taking place during the evening was a quick-fire mental arithmetic competition. This was won by Tim Fisher-Taylor with Helaman Hatcher second.

Ethan Ng

Ethan was a member of the 2020 New Zealand Mathematical Olympiad team. This team consists of the top six secondary school mathematicians in New Zealand.

The competition was supposed to take place in St Petersburg, Russia. With covid travel restrictions the competition was sat on-line in September. The New Zealand team finished 47th out of the 110 national teams competing. Ethan won a Bronze Medal which is an incredible effort in the world’s premier Mathematics competition.