On Wednesday 1^st March, four of our Year 5 pupils alongside 35 other schools were invited to the prestigious Guildhall, City of  London to take part in an exciting mathematics challenge created by Douglas Buchanan and hosted by Christ’s Hospital. In total, 280 schools were invited and Fielding were lucky enough to be shortlisted. The young mathematicians participated in different mathematical tasks where they gained points as they worked through the challenges.
 

Upon arrival the four pupils were split into pairs and worked within this pairing throughout the challenges. The day began with registration where the children met their ‘markers’ in full-dressed black robes. Markers were all current pupils from Christ’s Hospital who supported the pupils throughout the event and even when our mathematicians were incorrect, they were permitted to continue with a further opportunity to try again.

Children worked through several challenges such as:

• Make ___ - using all digits provided to make a given total only using the four operations.
• Ordering cards – pupils were presented with restricted rules.
• Tangrams – using tangram tiles and spatial reasoning to create a rectangle.
• Broken calculators -  where only certain keys worked and could be used once to reach the displayed total.

At no point did our pupils show struggle or anxiety, instead they were enthralled by the challenges and worked with exceptional amounts of co-operation. Our carefully sequenced mathematics curriculum supported pupils to think with depth and apply strategies they have learnt within the classroom into various contexts to work through the challenges they were presented with.  Although our children did not place within the final four they were presented with certificates from Christ Hospital and a gift bag. Our four Fielding mathematicians represented our school with great resilience, determination, pride and diligence.

By the end, all four pupils were asking: “Is there a Year 6 Maths Challenge? We would all love to go again!” Which truly summarises their experience to be a great one even when admitting some of the challenges were “tricky” but “great fun”.

We hope to  further enlighten Fielding pupils into the world of mathematics with challenges such as these outside of the school setting again soon!