This year the maths department had a big focus on developing an inquiry community within the classroom: teaching students about the productive struggle when you first encounter a new problem; teaching students that the main way to grow your brain is by solving challenging problems; and normalising struggle (and even enjoying the challenge) when learning mathematics.

As you may know, it is not always easy to get these messages across to a teenager, but we had some positive comments. Jordan (Year 10) was quoted to say “I like Maths”, and Dylan (Year 10) - “I have really improved in my maths this year.”

We look forward to continuing the messages of growing your brain, and understanding that it is normal to be challenged by maths, we just need to persevere.

We have also competed in some interschool competitions: the Year 11 Casio Calculator Competition and the Cantamath competition were the two main highlights.

For this year’s annual Cantamath competition we sent four teams,16 Hornby High School students, to compete against the top mathematicians Canterbury has to offer. The teams competed hard and made the school proud. Greg (Year 9) stating “Cantamath is cool and maths is swag” and Lauren (Year 9) says “The key to winning is teamwork”.

The teams consisted of: Harry, Kadyn, Cody, Risha, Axle, Zayd, Tobey, Nathan, Gregory, Lauren, Michaela, Tia, Pearl, Jessica, Nathan, and Presayus.

This is our second year entering the Year 11 Casio Calculator competition and the first time we sent two teams two compete. As with the Cantamath competition, they practised in their lunch breaks. They competed hard, and Team B finished with an astonishing 3rd place.

The teams consisted of: Cameron, Johnny, Ray, Alyana, Roanne, Vani, Francine and Jenica.

The staff of the Maths Department for 2019 - Mr Werder, Mr Daines, Mr Trenbeth, Mr Carter, Mrs Buenaventura, and Mr Rees - wish all our senior students the very best of luck in their external NCEA exams. We would also like to wish everyone a pleasant and safe summer holiday.