UKMT Intermediate Olympiad

[SkiFiend]

Just wondered if anyone else's child had done this today an dhow they found it? Do you know how long results typically take?

[Punxsutawney]

My Ds did the pink kangaroo, he thought it was quite difficult! He has only made the olympiad once back in 2017 when he was in year 8. He has definitely found the intermediate challenges more difficult than the junior ones.

I don't think that the results take too long to come back. Your child will have done incredibly well just to make it to the olympiad level.

[onaroll]

My Yr 11 did the physics Olympiad on Friday. First time her school has entered.
She was entered without wanting to be.
With the maths one she has opted out since Yr9 of being entered.
How did yours find it ?

[DragonTrainer3]

My DS (Y10) did the pink kangaroo, and says he thinks he did OK (although that doesn't necessarily mean he did!).

[whistl]

The results come out on the same day as the kangaroo results - about a month from now, i think.
DS2 did the grey kangaroo yesterday and thought it was ok. Last year DS1 did the intermediate olympiad.

[GrouchingTiggerHiddenSomething]

DS did the grey kangaroo yesterday and is pleased with how it went, he enjoyed it. He got to the Junior Olympiad last summer (and did well) and as he's only in year 8 he gets another go at the Junior next term. Interesting to hear the results take a while.

[whistl]

I'm not sure of the exact date the results come out. I found an email that I wrote to DS1's head of maths in late May last year asking him to tell DS1 how he got on in the Olympiad since "the results were emailed out several weeks ago".

Unfortunately the secondary school isn't enthused about academic achievement at all really. What excites them is sport, musicals and how much they can raise for charity each year.

And why should they care about academic subjects? It's not as though they are a school or anything! Oh, wait...!

[Mary2003]

Have been sceptical of UKMT for years. Intention of Trust good but I believe cheating by teachers is rife. Nothing to stop them changing scripts before sending them.Downloaded Intermediate challenge paper and got DD to write down her answers. She got Silver. A month later official results came out saying she got Gold and Pink Kangaroo. School (Grammer in Kent) initially said 2 pupils had qualified for Olympiad. Then they changed this to allow 5 to sit Olympiad paper.

[Mary2003]

Intermediate Kangaroo paper is taken internationally. Paper and results take 6 weeks. Marked by computer. Olympiad paper requires written answers and is marked manually and hence take a while.

[Punxsutawney]

I also did wonder if it was open to cheating too. I can't understand why they let schools pay for some students who did not qualify to enter the olympiads either.

Whistl my son's school is very uninterested in the ukmt stuff too. It's actually state grammar school but for some reason maths is very low down on their priorities. When my son won a bronze medal in the olympiad back in 2017 he was told he was the first pupil ever at the school to get a medal at the junior olympiad. School were completely uninterested, had he done well at a rugby tournament there would have been plenty of celebrations!

[whistl]

I think the rules are that you can sit the Olympiad without getting the requisite IMC score, but you can't get any award for it, no matter how well you do.

There is scope for schools to cheat on the IMC, but I think DS's school is unlikely to do that since it doesn't care. Other schools make a bit of a song and a dance about it - tweets, newsletters etc - so I guess they could be tempted to cheat. It's a low price to receive for selling their integrity though.

[Salamander1998]

You’d be surprised by the extent of cheating by teachers in schools. Stephen Levitt (of Freakonomics fame) has done lots of research on this.

Deputy head teacher of Eton was sacked 2 years ago for cheating in A-levels. He had made a meteoric rise from trainee economics teacher to highly paid Deputy Head of Eton in a very short time, presumably on the strength of his ‘excellent’ results.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4848940/Eton-cheating-scandal-brought-light-schoolgirl.html

Cheating by teachers is the elephant in the room but it keeps everyone happy, OFSTED, politicians, parents, pupils and helps with (teacher) career progression. But are we not just kidding ourselves, like the GP telling us to keep taking the anti-anxiety pill? What a Brave New World! At the end of the day, our children are our future doctors, lawyers, accountants and I want to know how good they really are. Will they do my tax return or surgical operation properly? The artificially inflated GCSE, A-level, University or even UKMT grades don’t help.