UKMT maths

[Aurea]

Hi

My 13 year old DS has recently sat the UKMT junior and intermediate challenges. He made kangaroo rounds for both. His (comprehensive) school hasn't offered any kind of extra coaching or support for this and I don't know really what this means. Are his successes significant or less so?

ATM he plans to study computer science at university.

I only scraped a C grade at maths GCSE so it's all very unfamiliar to me. Any advice on how to support him would be greatly appreciated.

That's pretty good.
The most obvious question is does he want supporting / extra help? If so, there is a reasonable amount of advice at:
www.ukmt.org.uk/individual-competitions/intermediate-challenge/
They have books of past papers and topics, www.drfrostmaths.com has individual questions as well as the ukmt resources. Mentoring information is available. If he wants to learn topics a bit deeper, doing some of the olympiad questions helps even if he's not quite there yet. Sometimes, getting some popular maths books by Simon Singh, Marcus du Sautoy, Ian Stewart, ... can help stimulate his interest and if you live near Bletchley Park, its worth a visit. www.thestudentroom.co.uk has specific threads for ukmt challenges/questions, ... In our area, there is a maths club for GCSE/A level students run by the University, so check to see if there is one near you. Similarly, if you know someone who has a bit of knowledge about ukmt challenges, maybe try and get them involved on a regular basis. Getting some motivation / help is important but be led by his interest.
Whatever you do, start simple and keep it interesting.

Forgot to add, there are computing / computing maths challenges
Brebas www.bebras.uk/
Mathsbombe www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/mathsbombe/
Turing Cryptography www.maths.manchester.ac.uk/cryptography_competition/
National Cypher Challenge www.cipherchallenge.org/
He may/may not be aware of them.

Thank you Mr Tinky. I've had a look at the links you attached and they're just his cup of tea. This is all very helpful.

We are in the Highlands so we have limited access and opportunity here so online resources are invaluable.

To put it into context, take the Junior level for example, around 300000 take it. The top 1200 scorers take the Junior Olympiad. The next 8000 high scorers take the Junior Kangaroo.

The Intermediate, if memory serves, around 80-100000 take it every year. The top 1500 scorers take the 3 Olympiad papers according to age group. The next 6000 take the 2 Kangaroo papers according to age as well.

I can't say this for all schools but most schools I know don't prepare for it. Some might run some kind of Maths club where they look at puzzles and problems. Some students actively hate them because they have to do it, not because they want to.

If your DS likes that kind of thing then it is beneficial for his mathematical education to carry on practicing the questions.

I'd be impressed that he qualified for the Intermediate Kangaroo at age 13 (it's open to Y11 and below).

DS2's school doesn't offer any preparation for the challenges. The questions are problem solving, and not the sort of thing you could revise for.

If he is interested in doing more of that style of questions for fun, UKMT publish a book of them. Have a look on their website.

Thank you once again. I'm also surprised he reached Intermediate Kangaroo. He missed a merit by one mark apparently. I guess the result is also influenced by lucky guesses though.

He's also really into coding which is his main passion.

His school has only ever had one of two into the kangaroo over the years. The maths department doesn't like to encourage the students to get ahead of the curriculum as I imagine it's an inconvenience for them. Resources and teaching funding is tight. N.B he goes to a Scottish comprehensive.

Hopefully after this success, he will be on their radar, and they will encourage him with more enrichment activities.

A lot of it can depend on the head of department.

DS2 is gifted at Physics. He asked if he could enter the Y12 BPhO (British Physics Olympiad) challenge, but the physics department said they couldn't facilitate it. DS2 found another national competition that he could enter independently (Senior Physics Challenge), and came in the top 40 in the UK. The physics department seemed happy for him, but not particularly excited.

In contrast, DS2 is mildly gifted in Maths; good but not in the same league as his Physics. The maths department have facilitated UKMT challenges and FMSP competitions and celebrated his successes in the school newsletter and (with my permission) on Twitter.

PS 1 mark off a merit is very good. The questions in the Kangaroos and Olympiads are a different level. DS2 is happy if he completes a full solution to one question.

So in my experience the opportunities offered can depend on individual teachers as much as what type of school.

I think a lot of it is down to logistic. The challenges normally involve more than one year group so they will be out of different lessons across different year groups. It is not easy to organise. Invigilating an Olympiad paper could be anything between 2 to 3.5 hours and will be needing someone in there with one, two or maybe a handful of students. Many schools are reluctant for that reason.

Another reason maybe the fear of the unknown and time constrain. Most teachers probably have never attempted an Olympiad question before in their life so they see it as something unnecessary and don't want to go into it because it takes so long to do even one question. A few years ago, it took me and one student almost 4 hours to solve just one problem. It was the end of summer term so I had lots of free time but normally who would have the time and patience to do something like that?

Have a look at the Scottish Mathematical Council's Challenge site:
www.wpr3.co.uk/MC/

Chris Smith's Twitter feed and newsletter are also worth following:

twitter.com/aap03102?s=09

Thank you not quite there. He took the junior SMC last year but only managed a bronze certificate as the school "forgot" to give him the second paper which counts for 50% of the.exam. They did apologise to him. I'm surprised he actually managed to get a certificate.

The Advanced Maths Support Programme is mainly aimed at 16+ but is worth a look.

amsp.org.uk/

Forgot to add a couple more

parallel.org.uk/ might suit him to get started. Its based on some ukmt problems and is meant to be a weekly set of problems to solve. Could be ideal?

BIO and TCS (more advanced Brebas - computing challenges)
www.olympiad.org.uk/
tcsocc.uk/

MrTinky the parallel thing looks good. DS2 has enjoyed Singh's books.

My DD is 13 too and year 8 in English comp. No coaching there either and maths dept have to be nagged to open results but generally they are excellent. The top 5 percent in year 8 got entered into IMC so him just being entered is good. DD was one of three in year 8 to get Gold and kangaroo, she got with merit but only one who did so just the top 1.5% there got Gold Kangaroo for year 8. She's just got Olympiad for JMC but had to nag them to open results. DS is in year 7 and he won't get his result until 10 June and follow on is on 11th, fairly certain he is Kangaroo. School overall never mention maths results, only sporting things and drama. But someone out there must appreciate mathematics and kids enjoy them so we carry on.

Results are online on the UKMt website for Junior kangaroo. My DS got 107 so hopefully a merit.

He's done well and should get a merit.

Do you have a link for the results please? DD did the kangaroo, but doesn't know when she finds out how she did yet.

Thanks.

The kangaroo answers are on the UKMT website. I only know my son's likely score as he had written down his answers on his rough paper and I could work out which he'd got right when he brought the scrap paper home.

Sorry I meant to say answers and not results before.

The "official" results are usually available about a month after the test, so a week or two before they break up.

As Area says, the paper and solutions are available on the ukmt site.

@Aurea The thresholds have just been published - merit was 89+ 😊

Thanks Romaine

My DS should have a merit then if he correctly copied down his answers. 😊