Mathematics

With another year of teacherassessed grades behind us, we returned to school last September with a bounce in our step and fingers crossed that there would be no further disruption.

We welcomed two new members to the Department; Mrs Hassan joined us as an experienced teacher from Ibstock and Miss Parry joined as a trainee teacher, both great additions. We were pleased to start the year with another large cohort of 88 Lower Sixth students taking Maths A Level, including 17 starting the AS Further Maths course and 18 doing Further Maths. The AS Further Maths course is proving an increasingly popular option, combining a Maths A Level with an AS in Further Maths. As it only counts as one A Level option it allows students to select an additional 3 A Levels, but allows those who are thinking about Engineering, Physics or Economics to study Maths beyond the A Level specification without committing to the full Further Maths A Level qualification.

Another change this year was the move to the Edexcel specification for our A Level Further Maths course. The Edexcel course allows students to focus on just one of either the Further Mechanics or Further Statistics options determined by the university courses they were applying for. Resources, such as online textbooks, are also much more widely available for the Edexcel course. I am pleased to say that the change has gone smoothly and has proved popular with students.

The various national Maths Challenges are a regular feature of our calendar and got off to an early start with the Maths Olympiad for Girls; we had 11 entrants, of which four received the top Distinction grades, with Katie Monaghan coming top in the school. Next up was the Senior Maths Challenge for A Level students: we had almost 100 entrants including a large contingent of Third, Fourth and Fifth Year students. Samuel Sturge in the Fifth Year came top of the school and went on to the highest level in the British Math Olympiad Round 2 where he was ranked 14th in the country. He was invited to a week’s summer school at Trinity College, Cambridge for training for the British team for the International Maths Olympiad, a truly impressive result. Third, Fourth and Fifth Year pupils did very well in the Intermediate Maths Challenge, with a record 28 going through to the Kangaroo round, and the recent Junior Maths Challenge for First and Second Years saw four students go through to the top Olympiad round. A great performance by our KGS mathematicians.

The KGS Hans Woyda Team had an exciting run of strong wins at the start of the academic year. In the group stage of the competition, after a walkover from Harrodian, KGS beat Tiffin Boys’ School (48–43), followed by Tiffin Girls’ School (48–41). This gave us the top spot after the group stage and led us into the tough knockout stage in the new year. With 64 schools reduced to 16 we faced Whitgift School next. After a gallant effort in this extremely close match, we fell short by one point on the day.

It has been a great year of competitions and the team (Fraser De Rivaz, Samuel Sturge, Anas Boulhami, Leon Feltham, Chloris Wong and captain Samuel Arwas) has demonstrated the strength of mathematics at KGS. Well done to the team and good luck as you work towards next year’s competitions. A big thank you to our captain, Samuel, for leading the team this year, and to Mr Chiew and Ms Clifford for excellent training at Maths Competition Club.

At Easter we welcomed back Mrs Jones after her maternity leaving following the birth of baby Olivia. We are sorry to lose two members of the Department at the end of the year; Mrs Rhys, who has been a longstanding member of the Maths Department, is leaving to relocate with her family to Northamptonshire, and Chris Hill who is also relocating. Thank you to both of them for their contributions and we wish them both all the very best for the future.

Mr J Skeates, Head of Maths