Question for maths teachers - UKMT Maths Challenge

[Cringetoun]

Our school didn't do the UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge this week, but has always done it in previous years. I know it was possible to do it online, and many schools did that, so I'm wondering why ours didn't. Is it a lot of work to administer and organise? I would understand if that is the reason, because I know the teachers are under such a lot of pressure at the moment.

It's additional work on top of someone's existing workload and given that staff are busy trying to cover the curriculum remotely it's another layer of hassle.

It's always work to organise, and it's possibly a little more difficult when you can't just pass a sheet round the top set for them to put their name down if they want to do it. They wouldn't have had to organise a space and time and invigilator, so that bit would be simpler, but they might need to organise them missing online lessons (or ask them to do it outside the timetable which means some might decide not to bother after all).
However there's so much pressure at the moment that I think we have to forgive them if some of the optional extras go.

My DS in Year 7 did the Intermediate Challenge this week, the school sent us login details and I just had to find a quiet place for him to take the test in our own time.

DS was asked to do it after school (as he was with the SMC and the Senior Kangaroo last term). I am pleased he got to do it as he really enjoys doing them but given they were asked to do it in their own time I'm not sure if everybody they put forward actually did it.

Our secondary ran it but they are very good at maths and offer maths, additional maths level 3 and stats at 16. My y9 and y10 sat it and they love these competitions - y9 had to do it in own time, y10 in maths lesson. UKMT mark them so think its mainly admin for teachers but its still extra work.

Lack of interest perhaps? Maybe not as many students as usual wanted to partake

It is less work than usual if you know how to do mail merge. Just assign each student a username and password, download the list, email them the log in details, set a lesson for them to do it in and that’s it. I organise this every year for hundreds of students and it was often a logistical nightmare because the paper is 1 hour, the lesson is normally 1 hour. By the time they got in and got started, it would take 5 mins already so it always ran over. Different year groups had to do it in the same day even if they didn’t have Maths that day.

This year, I just had to do it on the day they have Maths.

DS Y10 did it last week. He really didn't want to do it, but was told that all of top set had to do it and it was after school from 4.30-5.30!

@GHGN Any good maths books for preparing BMO2/IMO? My DS has gained a lot from Murduras Math and Alice in the Numberland. Those prepared him up to the BMO1 level.

By BMO2/IMO level, students mostly self study by doing past papers, IMO short list problems. I would advise books by Titu Andreescu and Zuming Feng. Although many problems don’t require a lot of creativity, they help students to gain solid skills. I quite like Mathematical Olympiad treasures, good grounding techniques for BMO2.

@GHGN Many thanks! Treasures book is very good.

Hi again,
I was just wondering if anybody had had the results from their school? Boundaries look to be very similar to previous years so doesn't seem like doing it online over 4 days has inflated them (the JMC last summer had much higher boundaries!)