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Primary children invited to join biggest online maths competition
World Maths Day (8 March) gives students aged 5-18 years old the chance to compete in live maths challenges with peers across the world, to help inspire self-confidence and a love of maths.
Schools up and down the country are invited to sign up for an international virtual maths competition, aimed at tackling common misconceptions around maths and helping students to overcome numeracy anxiety.
Following the success of last year’s event, where more than 2.5 million games were played, World Maths Day kicks off on 8 March 2023. The free event will run for 48-hours, encouraging children to unlock their mathematical potential through a series of exciting challenges and activities, to show that every child is capable of learning maths.
During the competition, children take part in a variety of quick-fire games and compete with peers around the world in real-time. Students will have to complete 20 x 60-second live games, earning 1 point for every answer scored correctly.
With games spanning a variety of topics, from multiplication to algebra, the competition aims to make complex maths subjects more accessible and engaging for young learners. Schools can sign up on behalf of students, who can enter individually for the chance to win prizes and be crowned Maths Champion on the leader board - each global winner in their age group will receive a personalised engraved trophy and 9th Gen iPad!
Despite the importance of maths in everyday life, around eight million adults in England today have the numeracy skills of primary school children. Part of the challenge lies in a false narrative that has developed around who can and cannot ‘do well’ in maths, with many people viewing the subject as more difficult than others. As a result, children as young as six report feeling anxious about numeracy.
World Maths Day is tackling these stereotypes head-on by helping more students to develop a positive relationship with maths from an early age, in keeping with this year’s event theme that every child is a maths child.
The competition aims to reduce the embarrassment that many students feel when they answer a maths question incorrectly. Instead, children are encouraged to be curious and have fun with a ‘try and try again’ approach for any questions they might not understand.
Since its inception in 2007, World Maths Day has welcomed over 10 million learners from over 160 countries to take part in its global celebration of numbers. Last year, the event saw an astonishing 2,590,505 million games played!
Katy Pike, Mathletics Chief Product Officer at 3P Learning - the organisers behind World Maths Day - said: “We’re delighted to be celebrating our sixteenth year of the World Maths Day global challenge. World Maths Day has become a competition that students around the world look forward to each year.
"Maths isn’t just about numbers, maths skills are skills for life - developing reasoning, creativity, abstract and spatial thinking, problem-solving and communication skills. World Maths Day provides a platform that encourages students to have fun with maths in an engaging way.”
For more information and to sign up for World Maths Day 2023, please visit the World Maths Day website here.