It seems that Badminton girls are getting used to dominating Mathematics competitions! Following the Year 9 team's success last week, two Year 10 teams made the early morning bus journey to Ashton Park School on Thursday 14th March accompanied by Mr Cook and Miss Nicholsby for one of the West of England heats of the Further Maths Support Network team maths challenge.
The six rounds were varied in style and pace, with four team members having to work collaboratively to allocate their time and knowledge efficiently. Despite a strong start the first round on "Comparisons", Rounds 2 (questions involving the number 2013) and 3 (problem-solving) gave the QEH boys a 4-point lead. Tension was high at half time, although after the studied Round 4 questions about the "Absolute Value" or "Modulus" function we had narrowed the gap to 2 points. The penultimate round consisted of multiple choice questions, worth five marks if correct or none at all. It was the final round; 'Carousel', which proved the most exciting, with all to play for. Pupils had to work individually on ten 'relay'-style questions each, with each question requiring the answer to the previous one, and then strategise to complete a fifth sheet of ten questions between them.
When the results were in, we were relieved to hear that Badminton had taken first and third positions, narrowly beating QEH by a mere 2 points, 130 to 128.
Congratulations to Jin Ju, Yvonne, Natalie and Julia who, as winners will go to the final at Exeter in May and to Anisha, Coco, Yiu Lam and Wing Lam for third place.
