Failsworth School Specialist Sports College - 11-16 Secondary Education

On the 3 March 2010, pupils at Failsworth High School took part in World Maths Day 2010. Failsworth pupils were tasked to answer mental maths questions against students from around the world. With over 200 countries and over 1 million students taking part, this event managed to make it in to the Guinness Book of Records for the largest online maths competition ever.

The Maths Department turned the day in to a school wide event, with teachers in all subjects starting lessons with a maths puzzle. During registration a maths quiz was completed and at break time pupils had the chance to participate in a chess competition, speed stacking competition, an interactive race game with voting pads and chance to tease their brain with some logic and puzzle games, as well as the online world wide competition.

In total 93,542 questions were answered by pupils at the Specialist Sports College, with the top Mathlete being Holly Grimes who answered just over 10,000 questions alone. Holly who is in year 7 said “I really enjoyed the competition and was trying to make it in to the world hall of fame”; whilst her Dad described her as being ‘addicted’.

Mr Atkins (maths teacher) said “1,133,246 students and 56,082 schools from 235 countries have united to set a new world record by correctly answering 479,732,613 questions. The idea was to try and unite the world in numbers on this one day – and at Failsworth the feedback the maths department have had has been fantastic. I think as a school we did a really good job! I’m already counting down to the 2 March 2011 for next year’s event!”