The King’s School, Macclesfield: Challenge for the Beautiful Minds
The King’s School’s young brains worked it out perfectly in the regional finals of the UK Maths Trust (UKMT) Team Challenge. Competing against the most agile young minds from 12 top schools from across the region, it was the King’s team of two Year 8 and two Year 9 pupils who won the qualification spot for the London final on June 16.
In a competition designed to challenge their teamworking as well as their mathematical analysis, Nidhi Garisa, Tristan Green, Maryam Atif and Alex Taylor collaborated brilliantly to win the event, with Fallibroome Academy second and Sale Grammar third.
The powerhouse King’s team was selected not only on results from individual testing but also an assessment of their ability to cooperate well as a team.
With some questions demanding one pair work out the first part before submitting their answer to the other pair as the starting point of the next section, the ability to work as a team was paramount. Other rounds also saw such an abundance of difficult, time-consuming tasks that each group strategically shared amongst the team to attain the best outcome, splitting the task into smaller individual problems, rather than just pool their thought processes, trusting in their partners.
As King’s Head of Maths, Tim Jones, said: “More and more careers demand not only a high level of logical creative analysis but also the ability to work together in successful teams. All the UKMT Challenges at every level are testing students logical thought processes and are requiring high level problem solving.”
Tim added: “We have some fantastic young mathematicians not only in this team but across all our Year groups. Nidhi recently achieved selection for the UKMT Maths Olympiad, a paper for only the very best Mathematicians in the country, while Tristan, along with other students, qualified for the Kangaroo event following the UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge. We have high hopes for Maryam, Alex and many other pupils in this year’s Junior Maths challenge. We wish this team the very best of luck in the National Final in June.”
