This year, approximately 100 Year 7 & 8 students have been incorporating the Otago Maths Problem-Solving Challenges into their learning experiences, in order to further develop their maths problem-solving skills.

This programme is run by Otago University’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and students are required to attempt five complex maths problems in 30 minutes, five times a year. Quite an undertaking! Congratulations to all the students who undertook these challenges and especially to the following students for their outstanding achievements:

Named in the top 1% of students in New Zealand, receiving an Excellence Award, an invitation to sit the Finals paper, AND a book voucher:

Ella O’Connor, Bella Wang, Jacob Allison, Liv Jacobs, Nate Hyde, Tana Harding, Elizabeth Jo, Ryan Keall, James Curran, Darshan Moodley, Brody Carter, Emma Liu, Esther Ryu, Blake Baker, Florence Watson-Black, Gwen Dunning, Juro Shigeeda, and Lottie Murray.

Special congratulations to James, Ryan, Elizabeth and Ella for achieving a perfect score, 25/25!

Named in the top 10% of students in New Zealand, receiving an Excellence Award AND an invitation to sit the Finals paper:

Finn O’Donnell, Amelie Nestmann, Sylvie Travers, Maggie Williams, Emily Joe, Phoebe Nguyen, Aden Winther, Oliver Zhang, Seb Penney, Eli Watson-Black, Mia Brier, Matthew Affleck, Niko Fea-Hurst, Anvita Badigar, Lyndey Jiang, Kris Porteous, Hayley Phillis, Sophie Hoar, Mitchell Collier, Leo Jordan, Georgia Young, Alice McKenzie, and Dan Forster.

Also named in the top 10% of students in New Zealand and receiving an Excellence Award:

Sahana Sambhus, Nimisha KC, Ava Whitty, Alison Renner, Guinevere Rickerby, Shihui Wang, Lucie Duignan, Juliet Boys, Darpad Pednekar, Alex Gardner, Kevin Bascara, Sam Loo-Clarke, Oliver Bowman-Bloor, Joel Butel, Eva McClintock, and Shwancheng Zhang.

Thirty-three students achieved a Merit Award as they were in the top 10-35% of those students who sat in New Zealand.

We are so proud of the skills and knowledge that these students have developed in order to solve complex maths problems that require multiple steps to find a solution.