The secondary side of the Braeburn Mombasa Maths Challenge

At Braeburn Mombasa we decided it would be good to run a competition for Mombasa schools featuring Mathematics. The initial proposal was put forward by the Primary Head Of Mathematics Mr Buckley who was developing a competition similar in style to the IAPS Maths Challenge held in Nairobi. Of course, we in secondary Maths, did not want to miss the opportunity for our students to take part so we decided to join them.

Our U15 team came 2nd in their age group.Well done!

The secondary Maths Challenge started with problem solving activities, the questions were a range of difficulties and awarded marks according to difficulty. The challenge level was high and a couple of the hardest questions have been used in UK Maths competitions in previous years. After the problem solving the students took part in a topic based quiz using individual whiteboards and a problem solving relay race. The problems for the relay race were easier but needed to be completed more quickly. Below is an example of a one star Key Stage 3 question.

All the participating students worked hard for the duration of the competition and the challenge level of the questions was purposefully high. We are particularly proud of our students, some of whom have never entered a Mathematics competition before. Since practice makes perfect, we have already started brainstorming activities to implement next term and in the new academic year in order to reach new heights and stay true to our motto “Summum Appeto”.

Mrs Wood