Maths Olympiad

BHGS year 8 student performs among the top 0.13% of Maths students in the country!

Every year at BHGS, pupils from the upper band in Years 7 and 8 compete against others from all across the UK in the Junior Maths Challenge. The Junior Maths challenge is set by an organisation called the United Kingdom Mathematical Trust (UKMT) which sets a range of other challenges for many different ages. Out of a staggering 300,000 11-13 year olds, who compete in this challenge annually – the top 9,100 people are selected to move on to different rounds. 8,000 students are chosen to compete in the second round which is known as the Kangaroo and the highest 1,100 scorers qualify for the highest level which is named the Olympiad.

One student from BHGS was resilient enough to be selected for the Mathematical Olympiad. Elissa Talaee of 8 Austen received a gold certificate in her Junior Maths Challenge after scoring an outstanding 111 out of the 135 available points. The Olympiad is a 2 hour paper with 2 sections. The first section is a series of 10 ‘short’ challenging questions and the second section is made up of 6 higher level questions which require a greater understanding. The marks are awarded not only on the correct answer but by the written explanation to arrive at the answer. On Thursday 13th June, Elissa joined the queue into the sports hall with all the Year 11 pupils sitting their GCSE Maths exam. Their paper was 1.5 hours long so Elissa remained in the empty hall for the remainder of her paper. Elissa completed almost all of the two hour paper she had qualified for. Elissa was able to complete nine out of 10 questions on section 1 and five of section 2. In the end, she was a mere seven points away from earning a medal after scoring 38 out of the 70 available points. She was, however, rewarded with a merit certificate due to her excellent ranking that landed her in the top 500 out the total 300,000 students. This means that she is in the to 0.13% of all students in her age group in the whole of the United Kingdom!

Very impressive!

By Libby Manning (9 Austen) and Elissa Talaee (8 Austen)