COUNT ON US SECONDARY CHALLENGE TEACHER TRAINING 2017 Chris Olley chris@themathszone.co.uk

The Count on Us Secondary Challenge: WHAT DOES IT INVOLVE? The Count on Us Secondary Challenge: Involves over 75 schools from around London. Includes over 4500 students from years 8 and 9 across these schools, with 375 students participating in heats and 60 of these going through to the final at City Hall in July. Ensures a focus on three key areas of fluency in mathematics: geometry, number and algebra.

RESOURCES Teacher Guide: Detailed reminders of everything in the training Details about the purpose of the activities Details notes on tournament rules Ideas for activities in school Resources and links to develop the activities Student Book: You will need 60 copies for everyone involved in the project. Practice activities for all of the rounds

HOW SHOULD SCHOOLS PREPARE? Schools have committed to: Practise for the Challenge with 60 students participating during in-school practise sessions. Run an in-school tournament for all of the participating students.  Activities: Set up a Count on Us Challenge Club. Run a curriculum evening for parents. Hold an assembly. Share the activities with colleagues. Communicate with other schools taking part in the Challenge. PRACTISE

KEEPING A BALANCE Large groups of students engage with the activities in a challenging and fun environment where they can develop their mathematical skills with the activities in the student book. Five of these students are selected to represent the school in the tournament and these students train hard to be as successful as possible, just as they would for any competitive event.

SECONDARY WEB SUPPORT The submissions will be a completed document, samples of students work, photos and because some of the activities require movement, short video sequences. It would be great if you can get suitable permissions for these to be made available on the web site. However, if not, then there will be a facility to let us know.

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR TEAM Make the activities available to at least 60 Year 8 and 9 students. Be ready to be surprised by who begins to shine in the different aspects of the Secondary Challenge. Look for students who excel at any one of the elements (substitutions are allowed!) Run a practise tournament in school. With all of the parts: shape puzzles, algebra and 24® Game. Allow as many opportunities as possible to let everyone practise.

TASK TRACKING Throughout the training, when we complete an activity, you will see an equation. Write it down, solve it and use an A=1, B=2 etc. substitution to produce a coded message. You will decode it later. As soon as you have found the solution come straight out and show Hope. There is a prize for the first correct one! Our experience in the pilot last year showed very clearly that the schools that did best had prepared the best and that students enjoyment and engagement depended on them having prepared properly and fully.

Write them down and solve them anytime! TWO TO GET STARTED: Write them down and solve them anytime!

THE NEW NATIONAL CURRICULUM “… pupils should build … connections across mathematical ideas to develop fluency, mathematical reasoning and competence in solving increasingly sophisticated problems”. (DfE, 2014)

SECONDARY CHALLENGE ACTIVITIES Round Activity Focus Content Timing (mins) 1 Geometric puzzling: Solving shape problems. Two activities. Fluency Problem solving Geometry 30 2 Fractions, decimals and whole number challenge using the 24®Game (5 rounds). Number 25 3 Algebra based simulation challenge. Solving algebraic codes. Reasoning Algebra 40

ROUND ONE - GEOMETRIC PUZZLING The Game of Hex. Teams will play Hex against other teams in mini-tournaments. Points will be awarded for games won. There will be large mat boards on the floor and the team members will act as the playing pieces. 2. Solving geometric puzzles. We will give teams sets of geometric puzzle to solve. Domino grids Tangram puzzles Soma Cube puzzles, making 3D designs Pentomino puzzles.

THE GAME OF HEX Each player has different coloured counters. Take turns to place a counter on any empty hexagon. The winner is first to make a complete line of counters from one side to the opposite side. The player who starts must not use the centre hexagon. They make their line from the bottom left side to the top right side. The other player makes their line from top right to bottom left.

THE GAME OF HEX: TOURNAMENT Play with one additional rule: The first player can use the centre hexagon, BUT the player to move second can choose to steal the first player's move i.e. swap one of their counters for the one placed. The first player then plays their turn again.

Write it down and solve them anytime! NEXT TWO ... Write it down and solve them anytime!

SOLVING GEOMETRIC PUZZLES Domino Grids Tangram puzzles Soma Cube puzzles, making 3D designs Pentomino puzzles Each choose a puzzle type and take its puzzle card. Complete one and show it to your team. Tick it off and do the next one. 2 points per answer + 1 for all 4 on a card, +1 for a ‘set’.

DEVELOP THE IDEAS The Game of Hex Soma cube Develop strategies for full sized Hex Learn simpler games. Make complete strategies (e.g. noughts and crosses) Dominoes How many pieces in a set? Why? Solve large domino grids. Tangram puzzle Make shapes with some of the pieces. What % of the total area has been used? Make designs with different perimeters using all of the pieces. Soma cube How many different ways to put the cube back together again? Reliably rebuild a cube Describe the moves to do this. Pentominoes Pentominoes as an example of an n-omino: how many distinct n-ominoes are there? Investigate all of the possible rectilinear designs that can be made from the pentomino pieces.

Write it down and solve them anytime! NEXT ONE ... Write it down and solve them anytime!

ROUND 2: FRACTIONS, DECIMALS AND WHOLE NUMBER CHALLENGE The 24® Game is a Card Game Combine four numbers using +, , × or ÷ to make an answer of 24. Hints Try to find key number bonds: 6 x 4, 8 x 3, 16 + 8 … Try pairing the numbers up to make the parts you need Try finding numbers to make 1 (to multiply no make no difference) Keep it all in your head!

A 24® GAME CHALLENGE

PRACTICE ACTIVITIES Find 24: The Board Game Torture Squares

DEVELOP THE IDEAS Use the 24®Game as a Resource Find different answers using all four numbers and +, -, × and ÷ Find the largest answer, the smallest answer possible, find an answer between 0 and 1, between 1.5 and 1.75, etc. Find one or more answers that are square numbers, prime numbers, cubes etc. Find the same number (NOT 24) with two cards using all four operations. Investigate the 24®Game’s Design Students can investigate to see if they can find an impossible number set and while doing this decide how to categorise the sets into one, two and three point sets. Single digit numbers. Double digits numbers. Three single digit numbers with one fraction. Four fractions. Other combinations.

YOU GET TWO FOR THE 24®GAME! Write it down and solve them anytime!

ROUND 3: ALGEBRA BASED CHALLENGE: SAVING LONDON’S GREAT INSTITUTIONS

THERE ARE THREE ELEMENTS TO SOLVING THE PROBLEM... Teams will need to be familiar with 12 famous London institutions. Teams will need to crack Caesar/Shift Cipher codes. Students will need to use algebra of any type included in the National Curriculum. These will generate one or two solutions which give letters in code to be deciphered.

ACTIVITIES Research (and maybe visit) the twelve Institutions. Practice the shift (Caesar) Cipher. Revise list of included algebra. Algebra practice: Web links (inc. Tarsia) Card sets in the guide

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO NEXT? Assign a lead person to: Introduce the activities in school. Practise with all your students. Run your in-school tournament. Select a team of five and send details with parental consent forms to Hope. Coordinate two staff members to attend the Challenge with students. Arrange transport and staff supervision for the Challenge.

Regional Heats: Between 8th to 12th May Semi-Finals: 5th June KEY DATES FOR 2017 Team names:  17th March Regional Heats:  Between 8th to 12th May Semi-Finals:  5th June Tournament Final:  4th July

THE LAST ‘LETTER’ IN THE CODE! Write it down and solve them anytime!

You now have a coded message … decode it with this Caesar Shift: We are confident that this is how your students will find the tournament and of course, all of their mathematics …

…AND FINALLY The most important thing is that the largest number of students get the chance to have fun engaging with the maths and get better in their maths by doing so. …then a small group reach an elite level and represent your school and they have fun taking part. Questions?