COUNT ON US PRIMARY CHALLENGE RUNNING AN IN-SCHOOL TOURNAMENT

Transcription

1 COUNT ON US PRIMARY CHALLENGE RUNNING AN IN-SCHOOL TOURNAMENT

2 COUNT ON US PRIMARY CHALLENGE RUNNING AN IN-SCHOOL TOURNAMENT Once you ve run the Primary Challenge activities in school and your pupils are confident and competent, it s time to run a tournament! We encourage you to do so to fairly determine the 3 pupils who will be competing on behalf of your school at the Regional Heats in March, but you can also hold one just for fun! To make it more exciting you might even want to reach out to local Primary Challenge schools to make the competition even bigger! You can see who else is taking part here: Benefits of running an in-school tournament: Pupils get the chance to practise the activities in a competition setting before the Heats You can determine who should represent your school at the Regional Heats in a fairer way you might be surprised by who stands out! You can invite parents to come along and watch or even to compete against the children! It s a great opportunity for personal development organising an event and making it as fun as possible There is the chance to build community links by reaching out to other schools locally and collaborating Positive stories for your newsletters and communications It s lots of fun!

3 Note: This booklet is intended to support you to hold an in-school Primary Challenge tournament, according to Heat rules. You will need to be flexible according to the number of pupils you have participating, the number of staff/adults you have available to help, and the space and resources you have. The most important thing is that everyone has fun! WHAT YOU NEED: (For a tournament with approx. 30 pupils please amend quantities as needed) 1. A hall/large space you can even run it in your classroom! Primary Challenge Heats Layout tables (3 pupils + 1 adult referee per table) - In the heats the tables will be arranged in a circle/oval shape (see diagram above). This is helpful particularly for movement of pupils during the 24 Game round, however it may not be possible due to the size/shape of your space. - It may be difficult to have this many tables, according to how much equipment and space you have. You may want to use larger tables and have 2 groups of 3 pupils at either end (see below diagram). It is also possible to have pupils seated around tables normally for the tournament, but they should be in groups of 3 for the 24 Game round where possible.

4 Photo taken at the Regional Heats 2017! - If you want to follow the Tournament as in the Heats, there will also need to be an adult per team of 3/table, so please consider this when you set tables out. If you don t have enough adults, you may want to consider joining the tables together, or having 1 adult per every 3 or 4 teams of 3. Teacher/Adult 3. A chair per pupil (+ for every adult who is helping to referee) 4. Pencils/pens for each pupil + referee 5. Projector & screen - You may want to print copies of all the activities and leave them on tables if you prefer 6. Stopwatch/timer 7. Hooter/whistle (optional)

5 Resources: 1. Questions/Activities for the Rounds CoU Primary Challenge Heats Powerpoint ( challenge/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/primary-challenge Heats-powerpoint.pptx) (and a printed copy per table if you would like) OR Create your own tournament activities! - 3 x tangram shapes (choose 3 of varying difficulty from the workbook or online) - 3 x pentomino tasks (choose 3 of varying difficulty) - Create your own codebreaking/problemsolving scenario! Remember to use Simon Singh s Black Chamber website to help you Code some clues and create a problem that the pupils need to find the answer to. TIP: put some maths problems in there to make the process even trickier! 2. Scorecards for the answers CoU Primary Challenge Heats Scorecards challenge/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/in-school-tournament scorecards.doc (can be easily adapted to match your own questions) 3. One Tangram set & one Pentomino set per team of 3 - This is how equipment will be distributed at the heats; however if you do not have enough for the number of pupils you have participating, you may want to put them in larger teams. - Alternatively, you can have one group of children doing tangram questions and one group doing pentominoes simultaneously, and then swap.

6 - You could also print templates for tangrams & pentominoes onto card and then cut out the pieces. You can get the children to help you! Cut-out Tangrams: Cut-out Pentominoes: Game cards per team of 3 - It is worth splitting up the packs so that each team has a few (with a mix of 1-dot, 2-dot and 3-dot cards) - If you have too many teams/not enough resources, you may want to put them into bigger teams for this round 5. Codebreaking pack + paper per team of 3 - Print as many as necessary Staffing/Helpers: Staff to help set up the hall (or ask your pupils to volunteer!) 1 staff member to host (introducing rules & rounds, also be timekeeper) 1 staff member/adult helper to referee each team of 3 - In school it is not realistic to get this staff to student ratio, so it may be easier to assign a few teams to each available staff member. For shape and codebreaking this will not make much difference to scoring; for 24 Game there may be some extent of pupils scoring themselves (and trusting each other to be correct with their solutions!) - Another option is that all pupils are given scorecards and have to keep track of their own scores, and these are marked and tallied up afterwards instead of being marked alongside the rounds. Parents/adult/pupil cheerleaders (optional but a great addition!) 1 adult looking after refreshments (optional)

7 TOURNAMENT TIMINGS 1.00pm 1.15pm pm 1.30pm pm 1.45pm pm 2.10pm pm 2.20pm pm 2.50pm pm Welcome/Intro Tangrams (team activity) Pentominoes (team activity) 24 Game (individual activity) Break Code Breaking (team activity) Scoring, results & celebration! - 3 x tangram puzzles - 3 minutes each - 3 x pentomino puzzles - 3 minutes each - 3 x 24 Game rounds - 3 minutes each (time in between for players to move) - 1 activity minutes (dependent on level of difficulty) Overall: approx hours (can be amended as necessary) - If you have less time you can do less rounds of shape/24, or make the codebreaking much simpler LOGISTICS If you are new to the tournament (or even if you are not!) it might help to keep to the timings and layout/movement of the heats as much as possible, so you and your pupils won t be caught out on the day! To start with: - Pupils should be sitting in their teams of 3 (team sizes may be bigger depending on the number of pupils you have competing).

8 Round 1: Shape Logistics - Tangrams and pentomino sets should be out on tables - Pupils work on each puzzle one at a time - Once the time is up for one puzzle, they must move onto the next one - You can show puzzles on the screen or have printouts on tables (or both!) - You can have bonus puzzles prepared for those who are really speedy Timings - 3 minutes per shape puzzle - 3 each of tangrams & pentominoes = 18 mins altogether Scoring - Points are only awarded for every fully completed puzzle within the allocated time frame (so each team will receive either 15 points per puzzle, or nothing!) - You can award extra points for any bonus shapes created but these can only be attempted if they have completed a puzzle and have time to spare before the next one Round 2: 24 Game Logistics - In this round, team members get appointed A, B & C (this only works if your pupils are in teams of multiples of 3 and if tables are roughly arranged in a circular layout if you cannot do this, try to swap pupils around between rounds so they play different people) - Every team member will play 2 pupils from 2 other schools/teams; therefore the movement of pupils is important to get right! - All A players should move one seat around clockwise (they will end up sitting in another A players seat) - All C players should move one seat around anti-clockwise (they will end up sitting in another C players seat) - B players do not move = pupils should be sitting with 2 completely new people!

9 Timings - Pupils play the 24 Game competitively for 3 minutes - After 3 minutes, scores should be added up and verified by adults (see below) - Players A and C then move around one seat in their respective directions again, so they are facing 2 totally new people - Play another 3-minute round - Repeat player rotations and play one more round Scoring - All pupils have an individual scorecard for this round, which they need to take with them when they move seats - Points for each round are calculated by adding the number of spots in the corners of the cards claimed - After this round, all pupils move back to their original teams and add their scores up together - At your discretion, you may want to cap the total number of points that can be awarded in the 24 Game round some pupils are incredibly good and so it may not seem fair for them to win an excessive number of points in this round! Round 3: Codebreaking Logistics - This is another team round, all pupils should be at their original tables - There is a lot of flexibility and creativity to be had with this round you can get your pupils running all over the hall to collect clues for instance! Timings - We recommend around 20 minutes for this round, depending on how challenging you have made the problem Scoring - Points are awarded for each Caesar code correctly cracked, and then also for solving the overall problem (if you are using last year s Heats activity the scorecard is quite straightforward and you can use this for inspiration to create your own if you d like).

10 Overall: - The team with the highest number of points wins! - If you are using this to help determine your 3 competitors for the heats, it might be helpful to create individual scorecards so that you can keep track of certain pupils and see who is the strongest and most consistent across all 3 rounds CELEBRATE! When you re aged 9 or 10, competing in a Maths competition can be quite stressful and scary so make sure you celebrate your pupils achievements! You could: Have some lovely (healthy) treats waiting for them at the end Handout certificates in assembly and invite parents Make a display board with lots of lovely photos from your tournament Even write a story in your school newsletter or local paper! If your school has a Twitter account, make sure you upload some photos and Tweet #PrimaryChallenge Or you can send your photos to Sheetal smistry@mayorsfundforlondon.org.uk If you ve booked in your tournament in the diary in advance, why not let us know? We d love to pop along, take some photos, and speak to some of the children about their experiences! Just Sheetal the date and time. You might even feature on the Mayor s Fund website! Remember, this is just a guide to help you if you d like to run a tournament similar to the Heats. Feel free to be creative and adapt the activities and rules to fit your school and your facilities. The most important thing is that your pupils enjoy themselves and they feel empowered to do Maths!