Chris Savage, AC for Suffolk, Essex, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock
Teams of four gathered together at various venues to compete in the annual Maths Feasts. For some schools it was their first encounter while others came prepared to settle old scores – the teachers more often than the students!
For the starter, the teams tackled individual questions for 5 minutes before passing them on to a teammate for their input for 4 minutes, then to the other teammates for a further 3 then 2 minutes, with a final minute for the collaborative race to the bell.
This was followed by the Main Course, where each team had to get their maths heads thinking through Prim’s and Kruskal’s algorithms. The Feast was rounded off by a scrumptious dessert – a relay round which will hopefully wet the students’ appetitites for our Year 11, 12 and 13 competition, the Senior Team Mathematics Challenge (STMC).
Teamwork was essential as different styles of problems required different skills. It was great to look around the room and see all the tables of Year 10 students working together, smiling and really enjoying our amths problems, especially considering they’d given up at least 3 hours of their evening to do so.