Underne triumphant again

Underne won the inter-House competition at QE’s Year 7 Maths Fair for the second year running.

Named after Edward Underne, Rector of Chipping Barnet at the time the School was established in 1573, the House took first place with 643 points, ahead of Harrisons’, whose score of 593 was just enough to put Broughton, with 590, into third place. Underne were duly presented with the Scarisbrick Shield in assembly. 

Pupil Dan Suciu, now in Year 8 (pictured above on the left), said: “Underne are extremely ecstatic to win this competition. We had put a lot of effort into preparing for it and are really pleased that it paid off.”

The morning fair, which took place across two days, was inspired by the UK Mathematics Trust’s team challenge events. Boys took part in a carousel of activities, including mathematical problem- solving exercises, such as crossnumbers, and more practical activities, such as origami and tangrams (a Chinese geometrical puzzle). Then all teams took part in a relay, which combined speed in movement about the room with speed in solving a mathematical problem. 

All six Houses were also required to create a poster on What is Mathematics? The prize for best poster went to Stapylton.

Each team was supervised by a Year 12 Further Mathematics student. Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “It was a great opportunity for the Sixth-Formers to interact with Year 7. We could not have run the event without their help, whether that was in supervising a team or in helping with the logistics of staging the fair.”