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This year’s leading national Mathematics competition for Years 9–11 features a QE boy in each 50-strong group of the top prize-winners.

Across the whole country, only 50 young mathematicians from each of the three year groups competing in the 2019 Intermediate Olympiad won the top prizes.

Even to reach the Olympiad is a significant achievement – it is open only to the top 500 performers in each year group in the UK Mathematics Trust’s Intermediate Challenge – so it took very strong performances by Shankar Vallinayagam, of Year 9, Dan Suciu, of Year 10, and James Tan, of Year 11, to win a place among the country’s very best.

In fact, James’ score of 53 out of 60 smashed through the threshold for winning one of the sought-after book prizes by a full ten points. He said later that he had found the geometry question particularly interesting, while Shankar added: “I like abstract Maths and that’s what the Olympiad is.”

And in a related Mathematics competition, the European Kangaroo, Jude Hill, of Year 9, achieved a perfect score of 135 out of 135. This is a rare feat, achieved in previous years by only two or three internationally. (The total number of perfect scores this year has yet to be confirmed).

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “My congratulations go to these four talented young mathematicians on performing so well under pressure.”

In total, 30 QE boys took part in the Olympiad – an increase on last year’s figure of 27 – and almost all of them won book prizes, medals, distinction certificates or merit certificates. Year 9’s Aran Ismail, Ansh Jassra, Arnie Sahi and Mukund Soni were medal-winners. Abhinav Santhiramohan, of Year 10, was awarded a distinction certificate. And 20 boys won merit certificates.

A further 139 QE boys from Years 9-11 took part in the Intermediate Challenge’s other follow-on round, the European Kangaroo, with 47 of them awarded merit certificates. (This competition is organised by Kangourou sans Frontières, an independent association that was inspired by the Australian Mathematics Trust, hence the name.)

In addition to Jude’s perfect score, the top scorers in the other year groups were Year 11 pupil Rakul Maheswaran, with 112 points, together with Amudhu Anandarajah and Alexandre Lee, of Year 10, who both scored 106. Jude said afterwards that he enjoyed the opportunity the Kangaroo offered to “apply your knowledge in new contexts”.

Here is one of the ‘easier’ questions from this year’s Year 9 Intermediate Olympiad papers. The triangle ABC is isosceles with AB = BC. The point D is a point on BC, between B and C, so that AC = AD = BD. What is the size of angle ABC? (Scroll down for answer).

Answer: the angle ABC is 36 degrees.

Year 8 House teams pitted their wits against each other in QE’s very own Maths Circus.

Inspired by the UK Mathematics Trust’s Maths Challenge events, the circus includes a number of rounds that involve both mathematical problem-solving and practical challenges.

Each team was supervised by a Year 12 or 13 Further Mathematics A-level student, while sixth-formers also helped with the logistics of running the overall event.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “Now in its second year, the Year 8 Maths Circus follows on from the Year 7 Maths Fair, with the idea being to show boys that mathematical problems come in many different formats, as well as to help them to develop team-working skills.

“The event could not have been run without the help of the sixth-formers and it was a great opportunity for the older boys to interact with Year 8: the Maths department is always grateful for the support they provide so cheerfully and reliably.”

The morning of activities first involved a carousel of activities such as Crossnumber (a mathematical version of a crossword) and Origami. All teams then took part in the Relay, for which they had to combine speed of movement around the room with speed in solving a mathematical problem.

The overall winners of the Maths Circus were Pearce with 569 points, beating second-placed Harrisons’ by just one point. Third place went to Broughton, on 549. Pearce were later presented with their certificate and the Robinson-Leong Shield in assembly. The shield is named after Oliver Robinson (a 2018 leaver) and current Year 13 pupil Samuel Leong, who both donated prizes they had won through the Jack Petchey Foundation to the Mathematics department.

In a related challenge, all six Houses were also required to construct a hanging mobile. There were teams within each House, all of which were required to create part of the mobile, having been asked to prepare in advance by coordinating the different sections so that their mobile would encompass their ideas about the many facets of Mathematics.

The prize for best mobile went to Leicester. This was also presented in assembly.

Afterwards, pairs of boys from the winning Year 8 teams were asked to sum up their feelings. Maxwell Johnson and Sthujan Jeyasingarajah said: “We are proud to have led Pearce to victory this year. We owe it to the exceptional effort made by everyone.” For Leicester, Divyesh Bansal and Aarav Thakur said: ‘We really enjoyed the entire day and it was a great opportunity to do Maths whilst also being creative and fun. It was the best!”

QE has continued its record of ever-improving performance in the Intermediate Maths Challenge, as the number of boys going through tops 170.

After sitting the Intermediate Maths Challenge (IMC), which is run by the UK Mathematics Trust, 30 boys from Years 9–11 join a national élite of young mathematicians going on to participate in the Intermediate Maths Olympiad – up from 27 boys last year and 19 the year before. Across the whole country, only around 500 high-scorers in each year group are invited to join the Olympiad.

A further 143 QE boys have qualified for the challenge’s other follow-on round, the Intermediate European Kangaroo. With 140 qualifying last year and 133 in 2017, this reflects another rising trend. Nationally, a total of 5,500 pupils across all three year groups are invited to sit the Kangaroo test papers.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “We are delighted with how well the boys have done and extremely pleased with the continued increase in the proportion of them reaching the follow-on rounds. As the new 9-1 GCSE has a strong focus on problem-solving, success in the IMC will stand the boys in good stead for the new-style exams.”

A total of 319 boys at the School took part in this year’s IMC. Of these, 172 were awarded gold certificates, 91 took silver and 39 bronze. The top 40 per cent of students nationally receive a gold, silver or bronze certificate in the ratio 1:2:3.

Each school or college also receives a Best in School certificate. James Tan, of Year 11, was this year’s winner, with a score of 127 out of 135. He said that he had particularly relished the geometry questions. Next in Year 11 was Gurman Saini, with 122: “I enjoyed getting my head around the riddles,” he said. He was closely followed by Hari Gajendran, on 121.

The Best in Year 10 accolade went to Dan Suciu, with 125, followed by Abhinav Santhiramohan, with 115. Best in Year 9 was Ansh Jassra, scoring 119 – “I like the blend of complex, challenging Maths and fun, creative problem-solving,” he said – and second place went to Arnie Sahi, on 116.

The names of the Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad papers are: Cayley, Hamilton and Maclaurin for Years 9, 10 and 11 respectively. The Kangaroo papers, which are sat by pupils from more than 30 countries, last one hour and feature 25 multiple-choice questions.

• Here is one of the questions from this year’s IMC:

A 24-hour digital clock shows the time in hours and minutes. How many times in one day will it display all four digits 2, 0, 1 and 9 in some order?
A 6
B 10
C 12
D 18
E 24

Four Year 10 boys shone in this year’s Maths Feast competition, rising to the challenge of tough questions that even included topics from the A-Level Further Mathematics syllabus.

They won two of the four rounds at the London Academy of Excellence in Tottenham, taking the maximum possible points total in the Dessert round, as well as winning the Starter round. At the end of the event, they had netted 109 points out of an overall possible total of 121, placing them first out of the 15 schools taking part, with the QE boys playing as team no. 8.

The team, who were selected by the School, comprised Andy Kwak, Alexandre Lee, Sheikh Mohiddin, and Dan Suciu.

Congratulating them, Mathematics teacher Kirtan Shah said: “This was a truly commendable achievement. All four students worked well together as a team, strategising and using each other’s strengths to their advantage.”

The competition, which is held at locations across the country, is run by the Advanced Mathematics Support Programme (AMSP) – a Government-funded initiative – and is billed as a “fun educational challenge for Year 10 students which tests problem-solving and teamwork skills”.

Each Maths Feast event is a one-off, with no further heats or finals, so participants and their accompanying teachers can take materials back with them to their schools.

This year’s challenge involved teams working on a variety of problems, ranging from a Merry Go round requiring a large amount of independent work to a relay that involved working in pairs. The A-Level Further Mathematics content came as the ‘surprise’ element of the competition; it was based around networks and algorithms.

Afterwards, team member Andy said: “I found the whole event a way for me to improve my problem-solving skills, especially in the individual round, where we had to work by ourselves and had no one else to depend on.”

Fifty sixth-formers enjoyed an entertaining day getting to grips with Mathematics that ranged from the offbeat and entertaining to applications that were literally out of this world.

The Year 12 pupils headed off to the Royal Institution in central London for Maths Fest 2019 – a Mathematics festival for schools designed to inculcate a passion for the subject among young people. The event is the brainchild of mathematicians and speakers Matt Parker and Rob Eastaway.

Accompanying the Sixth Form mathematicians were Mathematics teachers Joelle Simpson and Karmen Chiu. Mrs Simpson said: “All in all, the day was a fantastic trip out for the Year 12s; whilst they did know much of the Maths discussed, it was then applied to fun and interesting real-life examples, and there were also many new mathematical concepts introduced.”

First up was the host, Matt Parker, who entertained the students by asking a member of the audience to pick any two-digit number. He then proceeded to fill a 4×4 grid with each row, column, the four corners and each 2×2 square adding up to the two-digit number.

Science presenter Steve Mould then showed the audience 2D and 3D shapes of constant width that are not circles or spheres, before somewhat precariously riding a skateboard to demonstrate how easily he could slide along with these unique shapes. His most famous discovery is “self-siphoning beads”; a string of metal beads strung together on a chain, which, when released from its container, seems to defy gravity and move upwards before falling to the ground.

Joint host Rob Eastaway talked about Pascal’s Triangle (a triangular arrangement of numbers in which each number is the sum of the pair of numbers directly above it) and finding the ‘true centre’ of odd shapes. QE pupil Adam Hassan said: “Rob Eastaway’s lecture showed how we often make assumptions that are completely wrong, and sometimes the correct answer is the one that you would least expect it to be.”

Astronomer Lucie Green discussed the sun – Ishveer Sanghera commented that he particularly enjoyed her application of Mathematics to the solar system, including calculating how much longer the sun would burn for.

Oxford applied mathematician David Acheson made an “hilarious video” on finding pi using equipment found around his home, Miss Chiu reported. He talked about vibrations and nodes on strings, before ending the day with a “fantastic solo on his electric guitar”. Pupil Karan Patel also enjoyed this lecture, “especially the maths behind the snowball’s radius increasing at a decreasing rate, as well as the pizza box experiment”.

Other QE boys enjoying the day included: Suleman Yusuf, who relished Matt Parker’s “insightful” exploration of the world of puzzles; Shangeay Senathirajah, who praised a “truly eye-opening experience” which showed how Mathematics is useful in day-to-day life, and Alejandro Lynch Gonzalez, who appreciated learning about areas of the subject not covered by the Mathematics curriculum.

Three sixth-formers have qualified for the next stage of the élite British Mathematical Olympiad after strong performances in the first round.

Bashmy Basheer, Nico Puthu and Niam Vaishnav, all of Year 13, were among nine boys to reach Round 1 of the Olympiad, which is itself one of the follow-on rounds of the UK Mathematics Trust’s Senior Maths Challenge. They won a certificate of distinction and a bronze medal, with Nico scoring 40 out of 60 and both Bashmy and Niam scoring 37.

They now progress to Round 2, where success results in an invitation to participate in training to represent the country in the International Mathematical Olympiad.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung congratulated the three on their achievement in the first round and wished them success in Round 2.

Their fellow Year 13 pupils, Kiran Aberdeen, Kishan Patel and Robert Sarkar, also achieved a certificate of distinction. The remaining three sixth-formers all achieved a certificate of qualification in Round 1, which consisted of six long, extended questions to be completed in three-and-a-half hours.

A further 29 sixth-formers took part in the Senior Maths Challenge’s other follow-on round, the Senior Kangaroo, which represents an increase on the 2017 total of 25 and the 2016 figure of ten.

Thirteen boys were each awarded a merit certificate for scores of 35 and above. Saruthan Seelan (pictured above right) in fact achieved double this total, with his score of 70 out of 100 making him the best in Year 12.

Sehj Khanna (left) was the highest scorer in Year 13 with 50/100.

The Senior Kangaroo is a one-hour paper, with all the questions requiring three-digit. Certificates of merit are awarded to the top 25%.