Head of Maths at Tamatea High School, Sanjesh Kumar
Last week the Head of Maths at Tamatea High School, Sanjesh Kumar, organised the inaugural Tamatea High Maths Challenge for our local primary schools. Teams of four competed to answer a list of Maths questions within the allotted time of 30 minutes. Entrants included teams from Tamatea Primary, Porritt Primary, Napier Intermediate and Tamatea Intermediate.
The teams had to work together collaboratively to solve problems using their Maths ability, communication skills and creativity. Mr Kumar is very enthusiastic about giving the young people in our community the opportunity to develop their skills and explore where Maths can lead them in the future.
Mr Kumar added that he organised the challenge because last week was national Maths week and said that “Maths is the only subject that counts! I really liked that the students got a chance to compete against other schools while showing their Maths speed and accuracy.”
Assistant Principal of Tamatea Primary School, Jo Aplin is herself a strong Maths advocate and she was very enthusiastic about the event. She gave Mr Kumar some guidance with the level of questions so that the Year 5 students were able to fully participate “One of the questions in the junior section was asking the students to ‘evaluate’ something – we don’t teach them that word until they are older. Sanjesh was very accommodating!”
Winners of the Year 5 competition were the team from Porritt, Year 6 winners were the Tamatea Primary team, the Year 7 category was won by Napier Intermediate and the Year 8 competition was won by Tamatea Intermediate. Mr Kumar was very happy that each school won one of the categories.
