Dyce Academy Faculty of Maths & Numeracy

Maths Exams for all pupils in S3 will take place on Tuesday 24th April 2012.
All pupils will be involved during periods 1 and 5, and will not attend English classes on this day.

Period 1 : Mr Sim and Mrs Barnett’s classes will sit the Foundation Papers.  Mr Omole and Miss Martin’s classes will sit the General Papers.

Period 5 : Mr Sim and Mrs Barnett’s classes will sit the General Papers.  Mr Omole and Miss Martin’s classes will sit the Credit Papers.

All levels consist of both a non-calculator and calculator papers.

Exams will be held in the MPA; apart from pupils permitted Readers, Scribes and Separate Accomodation.

Pupils will require their own calculator, pencil, ruler and protractor.

We have 36 names from S1 & S2 pupils who will sit the UKMT Junior Maths Challenge paper.
This will take place during period 3, on Thursday 26th April.

Pupils and parents please note that the school password for access to the mymaths website changed on 15th February.  We are not allowed to publish the password on the school website, but notice will be in the daily bulletin.

All pupils should amend their login sticker in their planner.  If not sure of passwrod they should ask their maths teacher.

Individual usernames and passwords remain unchanged.

On Thursday 2nd February, thirteen S3 & S4 pupils took the UKMT Intermediate Maths Challenge; five of whom have performed well enough to receive certificates.

Dhruv Makwana (S4) – Gold Certificate + Best in School
Brandon Reid (S3) – Gold Certificate
Beth Beattie (S3) – Silver Certificate
Rachel Don (S4) – Bronze Certificate
Greg Rose (S3) – Bronze Certificate

Dhruv’s excellent performance put him in the top 25% of participants in the UK and qualifies him for the next stage, known as the ‘Pink Kangaroo’.  This consists of another 1 hour paper which must be taken by all candidates on Thursday 15th March.

Any pupil wishing their solutions for the 2nd set of SMC Challenge questions to be entered should return these to their maths teacher by Friday 10th February 2012

This session’s UKMT Senior Maths Challenge, open to S5 & S6 pupils, took place on 8^th November.  Raymond Wright (S6) not only achieved a Gold Certificate and Best in School, but by virtue of his performance qualified for the first stage of the British Mathematical Olympiad. Only the top-scoring 5%, (about 1000 pupils) in the whole of the UK reach this stage.   The ‘BMO1′ required Raymond to complete a further 3 hour paper of six complicated algebraic proofs on 2nd December.

Raymond’s performance at this stage also proved excellent, with his score putting him in the top 40 qualifiers across the UK.  For this he received a ‘Certificate of Distinction’ and a Silver Medal from the UKMT.  His score also put him well within the qualifying threshold for the next stage, called BMO2.  To put in context; only 100 pupils in the whole UK reach this, and only one pupil attending a Scottish School scored higher in BMO1 than Raymond!

The BMO2 paper consists of 4 questions for which 3½ hours is allowed. Raymond sat this on Thursday 26th January and his results are expected within two weeks.

Success at BMO2 would put Raymond one step away from the UK Maths ‘Olympic’ Team with final qualification requiring a residential weekend of maths at Cambridge at the end of March, with the aim of joining the team for a week in Argentina in June!

The Intermediate level challenge (for S3&4) takes place in early February and the Junior level (S1&2) takes place at the end of April.  We hope the excellent performances of Raymond helps to raise the profile of the challenges and increases our participation in these events.

The Maths & Numeracy Faculty webpages have now gone live, providing information on our courses and activities for pupils, parents and carers.  We will continue to update the information on an ongoing basis.