Maths Challenge Day
The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL) has been organising Maths Challenges involving Year 5 or Year 6 teams from partner schools since 2013. The GSAL Maths Challenge Day is an opportunity to invite small groups of pupils and teachers into GSAL for a morning of competitive, maths-themed challenges.
This year, we also teamed-up with our partner charity MathsWorld to offer the prizes for the top team. The charity MathsWorld runs a mathematics discovery centre in Leeds city centre called MathsCity, and GSAL will pay for the class of the top team to visit Maths City and the required transport.
Aims
To encourage a passion for maths in the Year 5 pupils of our partner primary schools as well as to promote our partner charity MathsWorld, which has a mathematics discovery centre in Leeds city centre called MathsCity.
To reach the maximum involvement from our partnership schools, we needed to offer the following:
1. A range of engaging maths activities that were challenging but not discouraging to the participants in each team. Activities were developed by the GSAL maths faculty. Team members were chosen by their primary schools based upon the pupils’ keenness for maths.
2. A venue large enough to hold the 15 participating teams, their teachers, one GSAL sixth form student per team and the GSAL staff. For this, we used the GSAL Assembly Hall.
3. An in-house transport provider that could pick up and drop off school teams and teachers that could not otherwise participate.
The winning team received a free school trip to MathsCity, including the transport. GSAL will cover those costs. Every child received a certificate with their name on it.
Background
The Maths Challenge was a regular event for several years before the pandemic, and we have resumed the annual event again since June 2023.
On the day of the challenge, as schools arrived, the pupils were given warm-up maths puzzles to complete individually or in groups. The Challenge itself consisted of four rounds of maths activities that ranged from mental arithmetic to cryptography. During a break time, the pupils received fruit and cookies and teachers received tea and a biscuit.
Resources
GSAL maths teaching staff to organise maths challenges;
GSAL sixth form students to help on each team and to mark the challenges;
Teachers from partner schools to accompany their pupils.
Financially, GSAL will cover the costs of three classes of 32 pupils to attend MathsCity and also cover the costs of the coaches to transport the classes.
Impact
Quantitative:
Eleven partner schools participated along with one team from GSAL. Each team included four pupils and one GSAL sixth form student. In total, 45 pupils and 12 teachers from partner schools were involved in the event.
One prize was given out to the top Maths Challenge teams, and so approximately 30 children will be given a free trip to MathsCity to explore and deepen their understanding of maths.
Qualitative:
Feedback from teachers stated how much fun the children had during their morning at GSAL. Teachers asked for their pupils’ scores back to better understand how their children did. Teachers appreciated that it was a well-run event.
One teacher also remarked that it was good for some of these children who are very keen on maths to be challenged in ways that they are not necessarily in their normal classroom. This shows that this event has the potential to provide an added value to pupils seeking greater maths challenges.
Pupil Involvement
From the moment pupils came into the Assembly Hall, they were kept active with a variety of maths challenges. About 45 pupils from visiting Y5 classes attended the event to take part in the maths challenges, in addition to GSAL's own team of 4. Not only was every team given a set of challenges, but also each team was given a GSAL sixth former student who supported the pupils through the challenges.
Frequency
The GSAL Maths Challenge Day is an annual event that dates place over the course of one morning.
