Team HGS takes 2nd Place in Great Britain

On Monday 8th June, Sienna Xu and Abdul Cheema in year 8 together with Aarush Maniyar and Yusuf Shah in year 9 represented the school at the National Finals of the UKMT Team Maths Challenge in Manchester. There were seventy-two teams from all around the Great Britain as well as some representing China. We arrived in a salubrious hotel Ballroom to find a sea of desks and an atmosphere of high excitement.

The competition was in five rounds. This year, the Poster round tasked students with researching Japanese Temple Geometry in the week leading up to the event then creating a poster on the day to include various information and answers to three unseen questions.

The other rounds followed the same format as in the Regional Finals. Our four brave competitors excelled in the early rounds, maintaining a near perfect score, then aced the group and shuttle rounds. The team had been making friends during the day and had worked out who their main rivals were but we knew nothing of the marks awarded for the poster round, so it was still all to play for!

The relay is a frenetic maelstrom of mathematics. Team members “walked quickly” from desk to desk to marker in a race to the finish. The HGS team had wings on their feet and excelled in this round. After it was all over, we were full of confidence and the team felt sure they were in with a chance of winning, especially as their poster was one of those chosen for display at the event. For those interested, the poster will soon be hanging proudly on display somewhere in school.

The results! Firstly, the poster competition – we came THIRD! Brilliant! Finally, the overall competition. Out of over 600  schools nationally, HGS came SECOND! What an amazing result!

The team are over the moon and rightly very pleased with themselves. Their hard work and tremendous collaboration definitely paid off and the team promise to be back next year. A massive thank you to Mr Robinson who coached the team in the lead up to the finals and to Mr Leitch for accompanying the team on the day.