Secondary Mathematics News

The secondary side of the Braeburn Mombasa Mathematics Challenge

This is the third year that Braeburn Mombasa has run a Mathematics competition for Mombasa schools. This year for the secondary part of the competition we were pleased to host The Aga Khan Academy, Kivukoni International School, TradeWinds Academy and Jaffery Academy. We started with problem solving questions. This is the most challenging part of the competition, both because we used international standard questions and because problem solving is the most challenging skill for students to master as it requires logical, multi-step thinking, patience, and the ability to apply, not just memorise. Other activities were the quiz section where students answered questions most closely linked to the school curriculums and the relay that involved a mixture of problem solving and curriculum knowledge. The relay has easier questions than the longer problem-solving section, however, as a race it required greater speed answering.

We used the scores from each activity to award points for first, second and third position (four for 1st; three for 2nd; two for 3rd) to find a winner for each age category. The results are in the table below.

To determine the overall winner, we awarded points for first (6points), second (4 points) and third (2 points) for the positions in each age category. The results from that are as follow:

All the students from all the schools represented their schools well and all the schools that attended achieved positions in at least one age category. Most schools were also able to put a team into every age group. It was such an enjoyable experience to watch students compete in an academic contest centred on Mathematics. The resilience shown by students in the very challenging problem-solving activity was truly commendable.

Our Braeburn contestants were as follows: Year 7 – Zahra and Alvin; Year 8 – Salma and Aaryan; Year 9 – Azeem and Hafsa; Year 10 – Natalie and Nicole; Year 11 – Ciara and Dan. Every team managed to earn a position within the top three. Our Year 9 and Year 11 teams won their age category and our Year 8 team came second whilst Year 7 and Year 10 came third in their age group. However, winning truly was a team effort as it was winning a position in every age group that allowed us to win overall.

I would also like to commend our Year 12 and Year 13 students that ran an activity or helped with the logistics of the day. Firstly, thank you to Aaliyah and Poul our Head Girl and Head Boy who tirelessly circulated around the campus ensuring students knew where to go and moving students from one activity to another. Next, I would like to thank all our A-Level Mathematics students for running/helping run the various activities. From Year 13 we had Dwyane, Christy, Tasneem and Fatima, and from Year 12 we had Muhamed and Kylan. They all did a splendid job and ensured the smooth running of the competition; their leadership skills were clear to see.

Mrs Wood