2020 Maths Department

When people reminisce on their experiences in their own maths class, I often hear one of two things – either they really enjoyed maths or, more commonly I hear that they hated maths and don’t ever want to do it again. This year the we continued with our focus on improving students’ confidence in maths so that we have more people enjoy their time in maths. It can be hard to believe, but when a student enjoys maths, they normally enjoy the challenge that maths provides. So in order for us to improve confidence in maths, we have to teach the joy of the challenge.

Maths is not meant to be done fast, and it is not about learning facts and recalling at speed. It is about problem solving; pattern hunting; forming questions; and making links to other concepts. Given the difficulties involved with this year, I think the students did well. We look forward to continuing the messages of growing your brain and understanding that it is normal to be challenged by maths; we just need to persevere.

We competed in the Year 11 Casio Calculator Competition. This is one of the few events that went ahead in this crazy year filled with pandemics and lockdowns. The Y11 Calculator Competition 2020 was held at Hagley College Cafe. The Hornby High School team was composed of four committed and conscientious students, namely Nathan, Jessica, Xij, and Presayus. Our team was not able to reach the top 3 places, but they competed with determination and confidence and displayed our school values with pride.

For this year’s annual Cantamath competition we were working with 4 teams of Hornby High School students to compete against the top mathematicians Canterbury has to offer. Unfortunately, due to the different Covid levels and timing, the Canterbury Mathematics association was not able to run Cantamath 2020, but we ran a mock competition within the schools so that these students could showcase their mathematical prowess. The students did well and had some fun. These students were: Aliyah, Reuben, Dylan, Kareem (Year 7), David, Travis (Year 8), Axle, Noel, Tobey (Year 9), Lauren, Gregory, Tia, and Cameron (Year 10).

The staff of the maths department for 2020 – Mr Werder, Mr Daines, Mrs Buenaventura, Mr Carter, and Mr Rees – wish all our senior students the very best of luck in their external NCEA exams. We would also like to wish everyone a pleasant and safe summer holiday.