A popular activity that grows year-by-year are the exciting mathematical competitions that we organise.  In many parts of Wales, and in some English authorities, the MathMagic game has been used by children from different schools when coming together for a fun mental maths competition at a neutral venue.  We give prizes to winning individuals and their schools.

An increasingly popular scheme is the example where a Secondary School will invite us to organise a tournament at their school involving their own Year 7 pupils, plus Year 6 children from their feeder schools.  As well as giving these Primary School children an extremely positive image of their future school, it enhances transition and builds strong links between the Secondary and their feeders.

We are eventually looking at organising and managing local tournaments with sponsors on board to help provide, and possibly fund, the resources for participating schools.  My long-term aim is for many of these events to take place throughout the country, culminating in a county or even national event.  I am therefore keen for local (and national) organisations to lend their support by sponsoring such competitions and/or donating boxes of the MathMagic game to local participating schools.

The game is widely used in Malaysia where govern- ment-sponsored tournaments take place on an annual basis.  This type of event can only be good for the children, which tries to get rid of the negative stereotype and shows that mathematics can be fun and interesting!  As our Malaysian partners say; ‘fun and play keeps Math-phobia away’!

On a smaller scale, some schools are now planning to organise classroom competitions to take place throughout the academic year on a round-robin basis.  If you are considering this for your school, please get in touch and we’ll give you some advice on how to organise such a tournament.  For instance, each Year Group Winner could play-off to find the overall Key Stage 2 Champion!  Remember, it’s much more effective when the children play in pairs.

If you are possibly looking at organising a local event for schools in your area or cluster, please contact us and we’ll only be too glad to provide you with our expertise as we have a wealth of experience in this particular field of work.

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