Last updated at 17:09, Tuesday, 13 November 2012

TALENTED young Furness mathematicians are being challenged in a national contest.

PROBLEM SOLVING: Low Furness Primary School team members, from the left, George Ball, George Stubbs, Victoria Longstaff and Ruth Cooper work on the maths problem JON GRANGER REF: 50040761B000

Ulverston Victoria High School (UVHS) is hosting rounds of the National Young Mathematicians’ Award 2012 for local primary schools.

UVHS was delighted to be selected as a partner school for the national competition, which is designed by Explore Learning in conjunction with NRICH at the University of Cambridge, to celebrate talented mathematicians from across the UK.

Schools nationwide have been asked to enter their top four mathematicians, two boys and two girls, to represent their school in this prestigious award.

UVHS hosted the first round on November 7 when 10 primary schools from the Furness area competed to solve a multi-layered high level problem.

The schools participating were: Sir John Barrow School and Croftlands Junior School, of Ulverston; Pennington CE Primary School; Low Furness CE Primary School, Great Urswick; Burlington CE Primary School, Kirkby; Greengate Junior School, Yarlside Primary School, and Roose School, Barrow; George Romney Junior School, Dalton and the Our Lady of Furness Catholic Federation, which consists of Our Lady of the Rosary Catholic Primary School, Dalton, and St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Ulverston.

The task was to find different combinations in a bracelet challenge. They were assessed on their ability to get to the root of the problem, to be systematic in their approach, to work as a team and communicate and to use good recording systems.

The aim of the competition is to provide children with an engaging and challenging problem and compete against other schools in a positive learning environment. The four schools that performed the best in the first round have been invited back to the Regional Final stage at UVHS on November 20. Those schools are; Greengate Junior School, Burlington CE Primary School, Roose School, and Our Lady of Furness Federation.

Lin McIntosh, the community maths coorindinator at UVHS and head of sixth form maths, said: “The pupils were really enthusiastic, it was quite a challenge for them, it’s not what they are used to.”

The top five highest scoring schools around the country are invited to compete in the Grand Final at the Centre for Mathematical Sciences at the University of Cambridge.

The award will be presented to the winning team by Rachel Riley of Countdown.

First published at 16:29, Tuesday, 13 November 2012
Published by http://www.nwemail.co.uk