Beyond the Bell

Maths Olympiad

This year, as part of the learning enrichment program, 31 Year Five and Six students participated in the APSMO Maths Olympiad (Junior Division).

Year Five students - Nathan, Parneet, Lavith, An, Joanne, Oliver, Co Lam, Gordon, Hamish, Jordan, Jasmin, Shreyan, and Benjamin.

Year Six students - Lac, Matthias, Saanvi, Naufal, Clarabelle, Amy, Sebastian D, Marcus, Kian, Chase, Audrey, Thomas, Mehreet, Andy, Jeffrey, Reid, Gianne, and Maxwell.

The Junior Division Olympiad (Division J) is an inter-school competition that has been specifically designed to stimulate and challenge high potential and high achieving students in Years Five and Six.

The competition provides an opportunity for students from around Australia and New Zealand to compete as part of a team while striving for individual excellence. It is a prestigious and highly regarded competition that has been running in Australia since 1987.

The main aims of the competition are to:

• Provide teachers with an ongoing, high quality and well recognised enrichment and extension opportunity for their high potential or gifted students.
• Provide teachers with a means to evaluate and benchmark their students’ progress compared to thousands of other students competing in the competition.
• Develop increased creativity and flexibility in problem solving and mathematical reasoning.
• Stimulate students' enthusiasm for, and enjoyment of, mathematics.
• Allow high achieving students to showcase their skills and abilities and be recognised for their efforts and achievement.

This was a new experience for ENPS; with students developing their mathematical problem-solving skills each week and then completing four test sessions over Terms Two and Three. The questions included were extremely challenging and I was impressed with the students’ knowledge and persistence to work through these.

All students received a certificate to recognise their involvement and in addition, APSMO provides special recognition for students who are high achievers, and I would like to congratulate the following students:

Highest Score - Lac and Matthias

Top 10% - Saanvi, Naufal, Nathan

Top 25% - Clarabelle, Amy, Sebastian

Well done to everyone who participated.

Carole Upton

Learning Enrichment Leader