The Math Kangaroo Math Competition

The Math Kangaroo International Mathematics competition is considered to be the largest school mathematics competition in the world. Created in 1980 by Australian mathematics teacher Peter O’Halloran, the competition now attracts nearly 7 million students around the world. It is designed to promote and stimulate an interest in mathematics amongst students, by allowing them to compare their abilities to others from all over the world. Math Kangaroo has been in China since 2019 and is entered by approximately 20 000 students, most of them from international or semi-international schools.

At CISS, the students have entered the Math Kangaroo competition for the second year running, although this is the first time that we have been able to field a large portion of the students at the school. This time around, there has been a really strong interest, with nearly 70% of the students from Grade 1 to Grade 10 choosing to enter the competition. The students have also practiced a lot with their mathematics teachers by doing several papers from previous years in class. By doing so, the students were able to train their minds into the correct critical thinking skills, allowing them to think about logical problems in a completely new way. Not only are the students developing themselves in a manner consistent with the IB philosophy, they are gaining skills, soft skills, that will benefit them going forwards throughout their lives. Many a time, we have had a good laugh, in the pleasure of discovering the solution to a really tricky math problem! It has been a wonderful time of collaboration for both students and teachers at CISS.

On Saturday, April 17, CISS had more than 50 students writing the tests at school, and the students were very enthusiastic and keen to do their best! In addition, there were a further 8 students who chose to write their test online, so they wrote it from home.  I am really proud of every student that, regardless of ability, chose to enter the competition and test their thinking skills against a worldwide yardstick. As much as we all like to laud good results, equally important is the experience students have gained from being willing to stretch themselves mentally. We train our bodies hard, so that we can become strong, and we do the same thing with our minds! Well done to all the students, you achieved something significant, and you did your part in representing CISS to the best of your ability!