St Andrew’s Prep doubled their number of participants in the Mathematics Competition in Burgas, Bulgaria, recently.
St Andrew’s Prep doubled their number of participants in the Mathematics Competition in Burgas, Bulgaria, recently.
Pupils Bas Paton and Kieron Baart qualified for the Grade 7 group competitions, along with the Diocesan School for Girls pupils Sally Anne Allsop and Caydn Barker.
St Andrew’s College pupils Nick Murray and Nic Kroon teamed up with Chris Matthews from Kingswood to pit their skills against fellow Grade 9s and 10s.
Streaming tests were conducted by St Andrew’s College's director of mathematics, Simon Kroon.
Participants were given additional training in the run-up to the competition and entered in the Key Stage 2 section of the competition, which involved individual tests, as well as a team test.
“The competition was extremely tough,” Simon Kroon said. “Several of the Vietnam pupils, both junior and senior, trained for six hours every day for a full month before the competition.
They certainly know the meaning of hard work from an early age.” Teams from the Asian countries took top honours, as had been expected.
The South Africa teams struggled in the Team Competition, but in the Individual Competition St Andrew’s pupil Nic Kroon was one of only two South Africans to receive a merit award.
Commenting on the tour, SImon Kroon said, “It’s a special privilege to watch the pupils stretch their comfort zones and grow through all these new experiences.”
South Africa was one of 30 countries to compete in the Mathematics Competition.
