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On to the Nationals

On Tuesday 25 March, Henry Davidson (8D), Joe Dharampal-Hornby (8K), Lucas Raschke (9GH) and Sam Karlin (9EG) went with Miss Gardiner to the Junior Team Mathematics Challenge – The Regional Finals, with the victors going on to represent the region in The National Finals. We finished an incredible 1st place, with Mill Hill County High School 2nd, and Preston Manor High School 3rd, out of a total 23 schools! It was held at Preston Manor High School near Wembley; we dressed in our own clothes and left Highgate at 8:50am, returning at 4:30pm, travelling by tube and train.

Before the actual day, we had spent 4 Wednesday lunchtimes practicing the various challenges. The competition consisted of 4 rounds; 2 before lunch and 2 afterwards. The first round was called The Group Round, where we worked together to answer 10 questions in 45 minutes. We did really well in that and scored 60/60. The second round was called The Cross-Number, where we were split into pairs and had to work on ‘across’ and ‘down’ clues separately to help each other complete the number crossword, within a time limit of 45 minutes. We did reasonably well in that round and scored 54/60. At this point we knew we were in the top 5 schools so far, so the pressure was on.

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The third round was called The Head-to-Head, where we were up against the clock (8 minutes) and another school to separately (in pairs) help the group collectively to complete4 questions, all interlinking with the previous answers, to produce one final answer. There were 4 different rounds in this round. We had a nightmare start with only getting 8 out of a possible 30 marks. But, when we thought it was all over and we weren’t going to win, we turned it around and got a total of 35/60 for Round 3. Now there was a lot of pressure on us, as we knew we needed a really good score to have any chance of winning. The fourth round was called The Relay Race, where we split into pairs and took turns answering random questions against the clock (45 minutes). We did really well in that round and scored 46/60.

Before the results were announced, Sam had already worked out we had got 81.25% - pretty good considering Round 3. Then the results were announced, “In third place, Preston Manor High School,” at this point I said I’d hate to come second – as we’d be left wondering, What If...”In second place, Mill Hill County High School,” I let out a huge sigh of relief. Now Henry and I were staring at each other, knowing there was probably a 50/50 chance of us winning the Regional Finals! I was nervous, tense and excited among many other emotions. As I can’t really begin to describe what happened afterwards, I’m going to end on this note. “And, in an incredible first place, Highgate School!” (Bring on the nationals!)  Joe Dharampal-Hornby

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