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After months of preparation and anticipation, our big day had arrived – the first Speed Maths Challenge hosted by Vedic Maths Forum South Africa - the venue, Turfhall Primary School in Penlyn Estate, Cape Town – date, 2nd August 2014.
There was much excitement, some nerves and loads of enthusiasm on the part of learners, parents, teachers and even us, the organisers. Some learners were waiting at the hall a whole hour before the event! All 5 schools - Turfhall Primary, Rylands Primary, Starling Primary, Habibia Primary and Regina Coeli Primary – were represented with their friends, family and teachers giving support.
We began with a briefing session for the participants where Mrs Darshana Rama laid out the ground rules and helped settle some of the anxiety. The competition consisted of 4 rounds of questions. In rounds 1, 2 and 3, all teams were given 5 minutes to complete Maths sums and puzzles. In the last round, they were quizzed on the History of Maths in Africa and Traditional African boardgames.
After a short welcome, the Grade 4 learners (5 teams of 3 learners) began their session. The winning school for the Grade 4 category was Habibia Primary School with 2ndplace going to Rylands Primary School.
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| Grade 4 learners |
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| Mr H.A. Allie: Principal Regina Coeli Primary School |
Next on the programme was an inspirational talk delivered by Mr H.A. Allie, the principal of Regina Coeli Primary School. He shared with us, based on his experience, how we can affect change by changing our own mindset and thoughts. We, as parents and teachers must be aware that we are the role models for this generation and should act and speak accordingly.
The Grade 5 teams competed in the next category. Some of the teams worked so quickly that it was a challenge for us to keep up with collecting answer sheets, checking the answers and working out the scores! The winners in this category were again Habibia Primary School and in 2nd place, Rylands Primary School.
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| Grade 5 learners |
Following this was a short presentation on the Virtual Classroom and its benefits for students by Mrs Neshni Naidoo.
The last category was for the Grade 6 learners. The winners were Turfhall Primary School (an all girl team) with Habibia Primary School in 2nd place.
We then shared the video ‘The Magic of Vedic Maths” by Gaurav Tekriwal which had everyone glued to their seats!
This was followed by the presentation of Certificates and Prizes to the participants and winning teams by Mrs Anusha Naidoo from the Western Cape Education Department (WCED).
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| Grade 4 wnners: Habibia Primary School |
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| Grade 5 winners: Habibia Primary School |
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| Grade 6 winners: Turfhall Primary School |
After the initial nerves wore off, we could see that the learners were enjoying the experience. The learners loved the Maths puzzles and were very quick in the History of Maths Quiz. They are already looking forward to next year's competition!
Parents and teachers welcomed this Challenge and saw it as an enriching experience for the children. This will most probably become an annual event with more schools participating in future competitions.
The event was covered by Cape Town TV (www.capetowntv.org) a local television channel. We were in CTV’s studio on 5 August for an interview, which was broadcast on 12th August. A recording of the interview will be uploaded in the next week.
Looking forward to Speed Maths Challenge 2015!