A big ‘well done’ to all students that took part and congratulations to the 2025 winners, the Cotswold Mātāhae 3 Team of Ethan, Junze, Elsa and Lincoln.

Kahui Ako CantaMath Challenge - Tuesday 3rd June

In Week 6 of this Term, the annual Tōtaranui Kāhui Ako Year 5/6 Cantamaths Competition took place. It was great to see students from our different kura come together to compete in, and celebrate, mathematics in teams. 

This year 10 teams from across our five primary schools (Bishopdale School, Cotswold Mātāhae, Papanui Primary, Redwood Primary School and Te Kura o Matarangi Northcote) competing.

Cotswold Mātāhae had three teams competing this year in the annual Kahui Ako Cantamath challenge held at Casebrook Intermediate. 

This competition was organised and run by students from Papanui High School.

Below is an article created by Kyla Woods outlining the exciting day for the competitors. 

On Tuesday, three student teams represented Cotswold at the Primary school CantaMaths Competition at Casebrook Intermediate. 

Four schools entered this competition, but each school had two to three teams. This event was set up and run by the students of Papanui High School. 

The students who represented Cotswold were great at working out the questions together, working as a team and demonstrating our school values. 

This is a competition involved collaborative work to solve twenty maths problems, not just one person solving them on their own. These questions might seem daunting for some and easy for others and that's what makes it a good challenge to work together to solve and conquer the questions.

In the groups, there were four people.

• Cotswold 1 - Blake T, Baxter C, Falcon J and Hunter B

• Cotswold 2 - Thomas J, Kyah R, Kyla W and Quinn B

• Cotswold 3 - Elsa Z, Ethan W, Junze Y and Lincoln L

One runner, the person who took up the answer to get marked, and three problem solvers who answered the question with the help of the runner. In the end the team that had finished all twenty questions right and in the fastest time would win the competition. 

Two Cotswold teams finished and one answered nineteen questions skipping one they couldn't answer.

Cotswold Team 3 won this competition and won a trophy and a box of Cadbury favourites each. Team two finished a close second winning a box of chocolates to share and team one finished in third place on the podium.

Well done to Ethan, Junze, Elsa and Lincoln in placing first on the Competition.

Many thanks to Nicola Campbell-Fox and David Guthrie for their support and to all of the parents who transported the children to the school for the competition.

Written by Kyla Woods, a year six student competitor.