St Paul’s students can participate in three maths competitions across the course of the year. As each competition follows a different format, students face different challenges in each. Competition results have recently been released and the following students are being recognised for their outstanding achievements.
The University of Otago Junior Maths Competition was sat by 42 Year 9 – 11 students on Wednesday 3 April. Nationally, students were given one hour to answer six questions, where the emphasis is on demonstrating thinking processes on paper. This is a particularly challenging competition for students as they must communicate problem-solving strategies.
Congratulations go to the following students who have performed admirably:
- Year 9: Eddie Bi – Awarded Merit, scoring 55 points
- Year 9: Scott Zhou – Awarded a Top 30 placing, scoring 74 points
- Year 10: Max Fletcher – Awarded a Top 100 placing, scoring 69 points
- Year 11: Jessamyn Freyberg – Awarded a Top 100 placing, scoring 66 points
Scott’s top 30 placing is worth special mention as he is in the top 30 students for his age bracket in New Zealand – a fantastic achievement!
The Australian Maths Competition was held on Thursday 1 August. We had a good uptake of students entering from Year 9 – 13. In total, 83 students sat the assessment which is predominantly multiple-choice in format and attempted without a calculator over 75 minutes.
Congratulations go to the following students who all gained distinction awards. For juniors, this places them in the top 20% and for seniors in the top 25% of students, respectively.
Year 9
- Fred Phillips (83 percentile rank)
- Eddie Bi (89 percentile rank)
- Scott Zhou (89 percentile rank)
- Ryan Ho (95 percentile rank)
Year 10
- Max Fletcher (82 percentile rank)
Year 11
- Didier Lawson (90 percentile rank)
- Andrew Teale (92 percentile rank)
Year 12
- Kazuhiko Yonekura (79 percentile rank)
- Lachlan Lamont (79 percentile rank)
- Jaby Lau (83 percentile rank)
- Jeff Lester (87 percentile rank)
Lastly, the Waimaths Competition was held on the evening of 13 August at Hillcrest High School for Years 9 – 11. Schools from around the Waikato enter teams made up of three students each (one team per school per year level) to compete on the night. The team collaborates on answering 20 challenging problem-solving questions in 45 minutes. This requires teamwork and lots of strategy around how long to spend on each question, and whether a question is going to be passed in (unsolved) in order to complete all 20 questions in the timeframe allowed.
- Year 9 - Eddie Bi, Scott Zhou, Ryan Ho - placed fourth out of 17 schools
- Year 10 - Max Fletcher, Lachlan O’Neill, Max Shi - placed sixth out of 18 schools
- Year 11 - Harry Derry, Saniya Kansal, Didier Lawson - placed sixth out of 10 schools
Our thanks go to all the students who participated in these competitions and to all those maths teachers who helped in the organisation and running of these various events.