The annual inter-school Cantamath competition, which involves teams of four students from secondary schools throughout Canterbury competing in Year groups to complete 20 questions worth five marks each in thirty minutes, took place recently at Horncastle Arena.

SMC had teams entered in each year group. Our Year 7 & 8 teams did extremely well. After many weeks of hardwork and extra practice sessions during lunchtimes, our Year 7 team, comprising of Charlotte Coughlan, Holly Ross, Hannah Wareing and Emily Zhou, got excrutiatingly close to the 100 points “Golden Ticket”, finishing on 95 points with the final question in their hands. The Year 8 team of Mia Fraser, Emily Harris, Claudia Hundleby and Christina Wang also came so agonisingly close, finishing with a total of 90 points in a very competitive race.

In the Year 9 competition, we had two teams who also did well with the team comprising Katy Buttle, Sienna McEwan, Dian Hermi and Bella Spear gaining 85 points. The second team comprised of Caitlin Parrett, Tess Roberts, Olivia Timbs and Holly Whitiker finishe well in the top half. In the Year 10 competiton, no teams reached the 100 points. Our team comprising of Caitlyn Wickham, Hana Nakajo, Sabrina Wong and Yani Rutherford finished in the top third, despite limited preparation.

Alongside the teams event, there was also a projects competition, where students could enter their work into a variety of categories, all linked to the overall theme of “Maths in the Environment”.

Kara Gooding and Olivia Hawkes (Year 7) were awarded a Highly Commended for their written work on the costing of various heating methods for swimming pools.

Charlotte Coughlan was awarded an Excellence for her very impressive scale model of the Eiffel Tower, made out of toothpicks!

Building on her knowledge in class from the Golden Ratio, Claudia Hundleby created a board game titled “The Golden Trail”, based on this theory. For her work, she not only received an Excellence award, but also one of the only four Outstanding Awards that were given out over the whole competition.

A fantastic effort from all of our Cantamath students! Thanks also to all the staff involved in teaching and coaching: Miss Lloyd, Mrs Strang, Ms Pine, Mrs Bates and Ms Sharman.