Two teams of students from The Armidale Waldorf School attended the Maths Day for the first time and surprised themselves by winning first prize in the Central Schools category. Their teacher Joanne Lowe said she thought the event would be a wonderful way for the school’s students to meet those from other schools in an engaging and stimulating environment.

Bellingen High School won first prize in the High School category and Nambucca Heads High School won the “Construction Challenge”.

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The students worked together in their school teams to solve a range of interesting mathematical problems. Calculators were not allowed during the day, but plenty of paper and pencils were on hand to work out the problems.

The Maths Day at UNE was first held in 1995 and has been growing in popularity ever since. This year more than 200 students from a 400 km radius around Armidale and as far away as Dubbo, travelled to UNE with their teachers and support staff in order to participate.

New England Mathematical Association planned all of the challenges, including both individual and team tasks and were the main organisers of the day along with UNE’s School of Education and the SiMERR National Research Centre.

The Year 8 Maths Day is one of the largest competitions of its’ type in Australia. The focus of the day was to promote students working together to solve a diverse range of mathematical problems, as well as interacting with students from other schools across the region.