QE’s team came second out of a field of 35 schools in a Mathematics competition.
The four-strong team’s total of 210 points out of 236 gave them the runners-up spot in the UK Mathematics Trust’s Team Maths Challenge, ahead of hosts Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’, who took third place, but behind Merchant Taylors’.
Captain Guy Flint and his teammates, Athiyan Chandramohan, Anshul Sajip and Thilakshan Thayalan, who were selected to represent QE from Years 8 and 9, also faced competition from other leading schools in the regional round, including Habs Girls’, St Albans, Dame Alice Owen’s, Verulam and Roundwood Park.
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The competition combines mathematical, communication and teamwork skills and aims to help pupils express and develop their enjoyment of Mathematics. It involves four rounds:
- Group round – working as a team of four to solve ten problems
- Crossnumber – working in pairs where one pair is given the ‘across’ clues and the other the ‘down’ clues
- Shuttle – working in pairs to solve problems, where the answer to the previous question feeds into the next
- Relay – working in pairs to solve problems, whilst also competing in a relay.
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Guy said: “We’re disappointed not to have won, but we had a very enjoyable day doing lots of Maths,” while Thilakshan added: “This competition has made me better at problem-solving.”
The team will have to wait until June, when all the regional heats have been held, before discovering whether they have made it through to the national finals.