A team of four boys took to the road in March, to attend the
UK Mathematics Trust Team Maths Challenge, hosted at Wycombe High School. The students,
Jack Underwood and Cameron Jones from Year 8, and Joe Kerrison and Josh Howard
from Year 9, went with Mr Keith Settle to compete in this competition for the
first time in the history of Shiplake College.
25 teams from across the South of England took part in the
event. The competition was split into four rounds, with each round being
slightly different. The first round was a simple ‘Group Round’, as the teams
worked to solve ten questions of varying type and difficulty. Following this,
the ‘Crossnumber’ round saw teams tackling numerical crosswords, with two
members working on the across clues, and 2 on the down. The ‘Shuttle’ round
came next, as teams worked against the clock to correctly answer a series of
four questions. The final round of the competition was the ‘Relay’ round, which
combines maths and movement, and saw the boys running around the school hall
trying to solve problems in teams.
The Shiplake students put in a fantastic performance, coming
21st. With the first competition under his belt, Mr Settle looks
forward to putting together teams with future contests, and using this as great
experience. He is ‘incredibly proud of the maturity of the boys, working very
well in a team and encompassing the inclusive attitude, for which Shiplake is
famous.’