-
Irish Maths Teachers Association National Quiz 2019
Eoghan Bradshaw and Biye Guo
Massive congratulations to two 1 st year students from Mercy Mounthawk, Biye Guo and Eoghan Bradshaw came in joint first place in the Kerry/ Cork IMTA Junior Maths Competition. Their outstanding scores placed them in 6 th place nationally, with 600 students competing in their own branches around the country. They were only 8 marks out of a total of 150 shy of first place!
Senior Maths Quiz Winners 2018 – 2019
First Year Maths Quiz Winners 2018 – 2019
John Hooper Medal for Statistics Competition 2017
Amy Byrne, Conagh Fitzgerald and Maggie Nolan display their winning entry in the National Concert Hall.
We were very proud to have three groups win prizes at the competition in 2017. Ronan McElligott, Dylan Savage and David Ryle examined how “Blue light is affecting sleep in people who use devices before bed”. Amy O Mahony and Shauna Flynn undertook a study ” Investigating the literacy skills of teenagers in our school”. The third group from Mercy Mounthawk to win a prize this year was Amy Byrne, Conagh Fitzgerald and Maggie Nolan who asked “Is cyber the new enslavement?”
Ronan McElligott and Dylan Savage display their winning entry.
Amy O Mahony and Shauna Flynn at the National Concert Hall
Maths Week Quiz winners 2017
Senior Maths Quiz winners: Eoghan O Buachalla,Odhran Liston, Evan O Connor and David Broderick along with Mr Fleming who presented the prizes.
Second Year Maths Quiz winners: With teacher 2nd year maths Mr Culloty were Darragh Murphy,Conor Bradshaw,Izabela Gacez,Caoimhe Leahy and Lauren Clifford.
First Year Maths Quiz winners: Jennifer slattery,Coren Hughes,Mengyao Ni,Jack Doyle,Jason Norris,Eva Nolan,Paula Holmes and Conor Enright
John Hooper Medal for Statistics Competition 2016
Last October Lauren O Grady, Rachel Bowler, Nessa McGarty received the top prize in the C.S.O. competition for their work on statistics. They were chosen as winners in this prestigious competition which saw over 300 entries nationally. Their project was titled: @The Early Birth Catches the worm”. Their statistical analysis concluded that: “Being born in the first half of the year has a significant effect on how successful you are in the areas of GAA and Athletics”.Another of our teams: Gerard Tansley, Colin McDaid, Hugo Wells received a merit award, one of only 13 merits nationally. Their project was about overfishing and its effect on our oceans our.
John Hooper Medal for Statistics Competition 2015
Our two teams who achieved merits in the Hohn hooper Medal for Statistics competition 2015 at the department of Education and Science in Dublin. Out of 400 entries nationally both of our teams placed in the top 15.
Senior Maths Quiz 2014
Mr Stack, Liam Gannon, Áine Daly, Donal Mullins and Mr Lyne (missing: Michael Grimes)
Team Math competition has been a long-running activity of the Irish Maths Teachers’ Association, with local rounds for many years and local and National Finals since 2005. Team Math is a table quiz for teams of up to 4 students from Leaving Cert year, with questions based on the leaving cert higher level syllabus. Regional Rounds were held on the evening of Friday January 31, 2014. Mercy Mounthawk had 2 teams representing the school on the night and claimed both 1st and 2nd place. The winning team members were Aine Daly, Michael Grimes Donal Mullins and Liam Gannon. The runner up team included Dylan Sheehy,Cormac Leen, Conor O Mahony and Brendan O Connor.
The winning team went forward to the National final which was held in NUI Galway on Saturday March 8, 2014. The team did brilliantly finishing joint second.
First Year Maths Quiz 2014
Congratulations to the following 1st Year students who won prizes in our Annual 1st Year Maths Competition
1st Tiernan Brosnan
2nd Paul Cassidy
3rd Laura Harty
4th Lucy O’Sullivan
5th Matus Lukco
-
The current Project Maths syllabi can be viewed at the links below:
-
Early Intervention is the key to confidence and skill in mathematics.
2019 Numeracy update
As part of the inaugural STEAM acadamy in Mercy Mounthawk, the top 30 achievers in mathematics in 1st year have been completing interactive maths problems online on the Google Classroom App as well as having mathematical table quizzes each term. Each of them competed in the qualifying round of the IMTA quiz last February where six students including Biye and Eoghan met the criteria to qualify for the final round. The others to qualify were Cathal Murphy, Ciara O’ Sullivan, Roisin Rahilly and Orlaith McKenna. For the final few weeks leading up to the final competition, these six students met twice a week before school and during lunch to refine their problem-solving skills. These students will now continue to work as part of year 2 of the STEAM academy starting in September 2019. We would like to congratulate two 1st year students from Mercy Mounthawk: Biye Guo and Eoghan Bradshaw who came in joint first place in the Kerry/ Cork IMTA Junior Maths Competition. Their outstanding scores placed them in 6th place nationally out of 600 students who competed in their own branches around the country. They were only 8 marks out of a total of 150 shy of first place!
2018 Numeracy update.
The main new initiative for this past academic year involved all first years completing a maths quiz during maths week in October. From this quiz, the top students from each class were identified and this 40 or so pupils attended a lunchtime class once per week to be made familiar with and tackle question types similar to those designed for the Irish Maths Teachers Association(IMTA) problem solving quizzes. These lunchtime classes were followed and bolstered by 12 online problems each week, posted on a dedicated Google Classroom page with the answers being provided by Mr. Mulligan a week later. This initiative continued from November until March. During March there were more lunchtime classes provided for the students so that they could practice for the Kerry final of the IMTA quiz.
It was found that providing extra classed which were backed up by online questions and answers helped the students value their own skills while at the same time providing them an avenue towards general improvement in their numeracy. The incorporation of the IMTA material to practice on and the goal of doing well in the IMTA Kerry quiz helped our students to stay focussed. Mr. Mulligan commented: “There were always a large number who were eager to get the new questions, they posted the answers immediately and often couldn’t wait the week to check on the solutions!”
For 2018 – 2019 it is envisaged that this initiative with the same group will continue into 2nd year and that it would be advantageous to have the new 1st years start a month or so earlier.
Extra academic mathematics classes continued this year for Transition Years with the extra time spent on calculus being of benefit to the students going forward into 5th year. During 2017 – 2018 all Transition Years endeavoured to take part in the CSO John Hooper Medal for Statistics competition as it was part of the regular T.Y. mathematics curriculum. All Maths students in T.Y. studied the Leaving Certificate statistics course and applied what they learned to the design and analysis of a survey of their choice.
In October we had seven students with three projects win awards in the CSO John Hooper Medal for Statistics Competition, a great achievement, especially considering there are only 15 projects chosen for awards out of over 300 entries nationally.
Maths week involved quizzes for all year groups and a mathematics themed poster competition for first years. Over 900 students took part in the various competitions that were held.
Students in the Junior Certificate and Leaving Certificate classes were offered a second mock exam which fine-tuned their preparations for the state exams in summer. Extra classes were also offered to the students in 3rd and 6th years.
In first year classes we have introduced an extra Maths enhancement period each week. This extra class is not taken by the students’ normal class teacher so as to allow time to step back from the day-to-day curriculum progression and instead to focus on numeracy skills and the promotion of a positive attitude towards Maths.
Over the last 3 years teacher in Mounthawk have been involved in the Learning Schools Project. This allowed for the development of skills and resources to actively engage with the needs of students. An example of the detailed work carried out by one of the teacher teams can be seen here.
