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Secondary education

Connect with other parents whose children are starting secondary school on this forum.

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Original poster

Junior maths challenge

22 replies

Neolara · 07/07/2020 22:49

My Ds tells me he got the results for the junior maths challenge today. When he did it two years ago he got a gold certificate. He doesn't seem to know whether he hit a category this year or not. Does anyone know, have the thresholds been announced? Not

OP posts:

lanthanum · 08/07/2020 13:34

In the banner on the top of the website:
www.ukmt.org.uk/

miffybun73 · 08/07/2020 14:03

2020 award thresholds - online JMC

Gold 102+, Silver 86+, Bronze 70+ (All years) There are no follow-on rounds due to Covid-19.

Original poster

Neolara · 08/07/2020 22:58

Thank you. He seems to have done worse in year 8 than he did in year 6! That's a bit of a worry.

OP posts:

DuckyMcDuck · 09/07/2020 10:16

Did he definitely do the same test last time @Neolara? There seem to be a number of different ones.

chillie · 09/07/2020 10:55

Everyone cheated this year so don't worry. My son also appears to have done badly but he didn't cheat and if you look at the grade boundaries from the last 10 years it becomes quite obvious that there was a lot of cheating this year.

Original poster

Neolara · 09/07/2020 12:45

Oh, ok. The cheating suggestion is reassuring (sort of!). He definitely didn't cheat, mostly because he wouldn't be bothered to do so.

I think he did the junior maths challenge which I'm pretty sure is the same one he did in year 6. He's pretty good at maths I think. I was just a bit worried because he's spending a lot of time in his room, supposedly doing work and it made me wonder if instead he's just on YouTube! Also, he spent a lot of Year 7 bored to tears (on occasion, quite literally) during maths classes, so the results seemed like it might be confirmation that he has learned almost nothing over the last 2 years. Which, while not a disaster, would not been great news. He's likes working, but I think lockdown has led to quite a lot of coasting. But then it's a funny old time generally and maybe I should just be grateful that he's getting on with any work without me having to nag him.

OP posts:

DuckyMcDuck · 09/07/2020 13:54

Wow, just checked the previous year's grade boundaries and the difference is huge. That will make DS feel better as his ever helpful older brother was lording his previous Gold over him

Original poster

Neolara · 09/07/2020 14:14

Ah. I've just checked boundaries for previous years too. Reassured! He would have got into the next round in every year apart from this one by quite a convincing margin. Thanks both. I don't need to bollock him for being a lazy bigger after all!

OP posts:

herecomesthsun · 09/07/2020 16:46

Ds did it in year 6 and got a gold. He missed out on gold by 1 mark this year (though his score must have gone up by around 30 points given the boundary changes). I don't think everyone would have cheated, he certainly didn't though some may have done. It was a very unusual set of circumstances and they may have set slightly easier questions maybe? We'll see how they do next year!

user149799568 · 09/07/2020 20:23

What UKMT haven't said yet is how many students and schools actually participated this year. They finalized the schedule rather late, quite understandably, and I suspect that many schools that registered last year didn't do so this year. The certificates go to a fixed percentage of participants. There could be quite a bias in the results if schools which were having a hard time with online learning were less likely to participate this year.

But yes, I've certainly heard of students using calculators on the exam.

PastMyBestBeforeDate · 09/07/2020 23:36

Dd got through to the second round last year but we never found out what she scored on either paper. Good to know there won't be a second round and that there was cheating so I can manage her reaction. She has autism and is a glass half empty type!

Piggy456 · 23/07/2020 19:19

If your child is in year 6, he is more likely to have done the primary maths challenge (for years 5 & 6)

JMC is for years 7 & 8
IMC for years 9,10 & 11

Each getting harder and more puzzling calculator or not.

Also if you have a look and try of the questions on this years paper, only a handful of questions 3-4 where a calculator is in any way useful.

JustHereWithMyPopcorn · 27/07/2020 12:15

Where can you find the boundaries for past years? DS didn't cheat so I'd be quite interested in seeing how his score might translate previously.

GHGN · 29/07/2020 07:41

The use of calculator speed up the process a lot, giving more time.

DD scored almost the same in her practice papers so I don’t think the paper is significantly easier as the boundary suggests.

Btw, previous years’ boundary.

LondonMischief · 29/07/2020 13:00

Do note that the previous papers were negatively marked, so scores would be lower students would be less likely to guess or finish the whole paper.

MidLifeCrisis007 · 29/07/2020 17:42

DH, DS2 and i each did this paper just now.... I came last of the 3 of us (and am a Chartered Accountant!), but scraped a gold by the skin of my teeth. DS2 (year 8) was a question ahead and DH was 2 questions ahead.

The last question was properly hard!

They are great fun to do if you like maths.

Malbecfan · 29/07/2020 17:45

DD1 got a gold in primary maths challenge. She was only in y4 but worked with the year above - she was the only gold in the school. She got various bronze and silver in secondary school and I think one gold but never into further rounds. She got A* in Maths A level, A in FM and is studying science at Cambridge. It depends on the questions and the day in her experience.

trinity0097 · 29/07/2020 18:34

@Malbecfan she wouldn’t have been the only gold in the school on the PMC, unless only 10 pupils sat it?

For every pack of 10 PMC tests, you get 1 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze certs to distribute however the school sees fit.

Malbecfan · 29/07/2020 19:50

There were only a few in the class @trinity0097. It was a very small school.

Ilovefriday · 29/07/2020 20:22

Usually the harder questions in the second half of the test are negatively marked, if you get one wrong you get - 1 rather than 0, this is to stop guessing. This year they weren't marked like this. I also agree that a fair few children will have used a calculator or had help. Sad but true.

NCTDN · 15/08/2020 22:43

Did also did the junior maths challenge in y6 and got a bronze award. This year (y8) he just got a certificate of participation, so I assume that means he did worse! I do think there was lots of cheating this year though. How could there not be when completing at home? Ds never, but really could've got his older siblings to do it for him now I think about it.

LEAIssues · 16/08/2020 21:15

Thanks for posting this.

Dd is now very pleased with her Bronze. She was despondent because she thought she had dropped from last year's score. We guessed there would be lots of cheating as her school did a past paper a month before the actual test (they thought there was not going to be a test ) and some people got very surprising scores.

Dd said her friends were asking each other the answers on WhatsApp chat during the test. Dd refused DH's help (jokingly offered - it was HER test not HIS) and was doing the test in the study next to me.

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