Junior Maths Olympiad on Tuesday

[roisin]

Are anyone else's dc doing this this year?
ds2 has done a few practice papers and is really looking forward to it!

Congratulations to your DS too, Roisin.

That's fantastic TheCheeseAlarm: wow! Gold = top 30 in the country!

Very well done indeed to cheeseds and roisinds. As usual we seem to have more than our share of talented mathsy children on mumsnet!

Oh I didn?t realise you were talking about this. DD has also done it for the last 4 years (the first time she was only 10 and got a silver award) she said last year was the hardest. As far as I?m aware it?s not something you can revise for.

Wow: that's amazing Sadie. ds2's school only enter them in yr8, so it's all new to him.

Did your dd do the Olympiad round this year and/or previous years?

She was up a year at her previous school so they put some of the more able year 7s in for it a year early but DD was only 10 at the time. I had no idea it was something only a few children do I just assumed the whole school did it. I just looked at her certificates she?s got two silvers and two gold.
Congratulations to your son, you must be super proud and rightly so.

The challenge round is aimed at the top third (or half, can't remember) of the ability range of years 7 and 8 sadie. So most schools only enter their top sets and most primary schools wouldn't enter anyone. The next round, the olympiad, is for the top 1000 or so children in the country (from both years and much more rarely from younger ones), so it's rare to get more than one or maybe two from any school qualifying for it. They give actual medals for the olympiad rather than certificates, though the medals are slightly disappointing in quality.

She did the junior mathematics Olympiad and was one of 3 who got gold last year. She has only ever had certificates back. I had no idea it was like a competition now I am wondering why she was not put in for the advanced stages.

Are you sure you are not confusing the olympiad with the maths challenge? You have to sit the Maths challenge and gain a very high gold standard in order to be invited to do the Olympiad which is the more advanced round. The challenge is multiple choice format and the Olympiad is a small number of long answer questions. At most schools no-one will qualify. It is possible that some schools may not actually put qualifiers in to the Olympiad as it is a very tough exam that they may not be prepared for or they may find it difficult to provide supervision for the time (3hours?) required. The medals that are given out for the Olympiad performance only go to about 100 or so children accross the country, so to have 2 or 3 on mumsnet is quite extraordinary!

3 children getting gold in the challenge from one school sounds about normal sadie, 3 getting gold in the olympiad sounds highly unlikely.

I don't think there are only 30 gold awards in the country.

My DD did the Intermediate test this year and achieved a Gold award. She went on to the kangaroo round and earned a certificate of merit. We reckoned that she was in the top 7.5% of European students ( so thousands).

We are very proud of her, but she can't go on to achieve more until she is in sixth form, as she achieved the top grade for her band in year 10.

I am hoping that she chooses maths for A-level.

Claire, again that would be the intermediate challenge round that your dd got a gold in. The Kangaroo is then the lower of the two follow on rounds to that competition with a mid gold cut-off for entry. A higher gold result in the challenge would qualify you for the olympiad round (you can't do both olympiad and kangaroo, it's either/or) which at intermediate level are split into 3 (one for each year group and are named after Australian mathematicians - Maclaurin, something else and Cayley) The top 30 or so in those olymiad competitions are awarded gold medals. It's not exactly 30, but that's the right order of magnitude - it's a very, very good achievement.

These maths competitions are very much the way it is in sport. You can be best in school, best in the county but when you get to national level you find there are lots of others who are way better!

The confusion is from the two rounds.
UKMT junior challenge round awards gold, silver and certificates.
Less than 10% of gold certificate winners are then invited to do the Junior Olympiad.

The Olympiad results in either a participation certificate or a distinction certificate.
For a small number of top performers they award medals (not certificates) of gold, silver and bronze.

UKMT site

HTH

240,000 students enter the junior challenge
16,000 only win a gold certificate which is a real achievement. Many non-selective schools will only have 1, 2 or 3 gold certificate winners.

BUT only 1200 go on to the next round: The Junior Oympiad.
And just THIRTY in the whole country get a gold medal - among them Thecheesealarm's ds this year.