Secondary Maths Challenge Sparks Enthusiasm and Teamwork

Our annual Inspiration Trust Secondary Maths Challenge took place last week as our secondary academies came together in Norwich at the Inspiration Trust Centre for Education, based at Hewett Academy. 

The tasks for pupils in the morning included a maths Relay Race and Dominoes Puzzle, whilst teachers were set their own challenge and given a competition workbook to complete! 

It was fantastic to see so many pupils engage with the maths problems, working hard to solve each task and adjust their answers as new information was given. Teamwork was apparent across all academies as older pupils supported Year 7s; some pupils were excited to work on equations beyond their current learning with the support of their peers! 

The Eliminator task saw pupils compete in a head-to-head competition, answering maths questions against the clock. This intense challenge pitted pupils against each other in an endurance round answering maths problems from across the curriculum. Rounds got harder as they progressed with finalists facing very difficult questions under strict time limits. A winner was crowned from each year group, presented with prizes for their fantastic efforts at the end of the day. 

Nicola Coe, Director of Maths at Inspiration Trust said; 

“It is such a privilege to work with teachers and pupils that are all so enthusiastic and committed to their mathematical learning. The central maths team really enjoy putting the tasks together to inspire the pupils and I am extremely fortunate to work with such a dedicated team” 

In the next session, pupils were challenged to a game of the Da Vinci Code. This quickfire codebreaking game led to many exciting matches with pupils winning points towards their academy totals. 

The Padlock Challenge was a highlight of the day with pupils racing against the clock to solve problems. If they managed to get the answers (to some extremely tricky questions!), they had the chance to unlock a padlock which held a star worth bonus points for their academy teams. This challenge saw lots of academies approach the padlocks with their answers, with only the quickest pupils having a chance to win bonus points for their teams. 

Tom Marjoram, Maths Outreach Lead said: 

“The Secondary Maths Challenge is always one of my highlights of the year. Watching all of our schools competing against each other whilst engaged in mathematical activities is always so wonderful to see. I would like to pass on congratulations to all of the students who took part on the day.“ 

The finale for the day was the Practical Challenge. This year teams had to work together to create a strategy to produce recreations of block diagrams given only three views of the model. Pupils had to be careful to align the views correctly to create the exact model in question. The first half of this challenge involved every team member creating and producing their block models, and for the final part the teams were tasked to choose their best members to skilfully reproduce a challenging final model in timed conditions. A particular mention goes to King Edward VII Academy where pupils had a natural affinity for the spatial skills in this task and managed to perform extremely well under pressure, solving all puzzles very quickly. 

The day concluded with a prize-giving ceremony for our annual winners; Hethersett Academy took first place, proud winners of the Inspiration Trust Secondary Maths Challenge cup. In second place were King Edward VII Academy and in third place came Jane Austen College.