GHS ākonga have great successes in global mathematics competitions

In term 1, almost 20 students from years 7 to 11 put themselves forward to enter the largest mathematics competition in the world, the Kangourou Sans Frontières. Although oddly named for a maths competition, with reasons that will become clear later, it annually gets around 6 million student entrants from across 77 countries. It's an online challenge that students attempt in about an hour and without a calculator. As for the name, the competition was initiated in 1991 by three French mathematics teachers who had been inspired by the Australian maths competitions.

We are really pleased to announce our award-winning KSF mathematicians as below:

Year 7

• Pippa Saywell
• Fabian Tipacti
• Fletcher Wilson
• Pippa McKeown
• Charlotte Taylor
• Ella McDonald

Year 8

• Ashley Looman
• Billy Nelson
• Ben Morton
• Grace Worner

Year 9

• Harry Craddock
• Chamdhya Assaddume Gedara
• Addison Campbell

Year 10

• Althea Smith

Year 11

• Henry Prouting

In each group above, the top-named student achieved the school's top score for their year group. We also have a special shout-out to Pippa Saywell in year 7, whose awesome result earned her a credit certificate as one of the competition's top mathematicians in year 7.

Following this, just a few weeks ago, all of our students in years 9 to 11 were able to take part in the Education Perfect ANZ Maths Competition. This involved students choosing to work on questions of their choice across any maths topic. It was a great opportunity for students to brush up on their skills and even prepare for upcoming assessments. All students in years 9 to 11 have free access to Education Perfect at school and at home - so it's always there to help students catch up on missed work in class and get more practice too to help build deep understanding. In the competition, Geraldine High School placed 115th out of 1563 schools globally - putting our school in the top 7% of schools globally taking part. This is a fantastic achievement for any school, and even more so for a school of our size. Overall school year group prize winners were Ethan Hall, Ana Edkins, Chamodhi Assaddume Gedare, Jackson Wilson, Alex Croft, Zech Reardon, Hedi Trounson and Luke Wilkins. There was one Gold certificate awarded - Alex Croft (who placed 740th overall out of over 20 000 students and was in the top 3% of students globally), with Silver certificates going to Zech Reardon, Ana Edkins, Heidi Trounson, Tristen Flowers and Chamodhi Assaddume Gedare, and Credit certificates going to Althea Smith and Logan Adams. Congratulations to all.

GHS mathematicians have even more chances to shine later in the year with the Aoraki Maths Competition (year-based teams of 4 compete locally with other schools), and the Australian Maths Competition (which our KSF entrants automatically gain entry to).

We look forward to being able to let you know about further successes as the year progresses.