Below you will find what's going on at 'The Challenge' along with any events that will be taking place. If you have any news that others would be interested in, let us know and we'll include it here for all to see!

8th July 2010/Teacher Training in Caerphilly

Thanks go to Andrew Winn and the staff at Blackwood Comprehensive for hosting the last teacher training day of the school year for us.  It turned into a very competitive affair and teachers from 9 different schools took part.

 

8th July 2010/The 2010 Summer Madness Race

Click here for a full report.

24th June 2010/Extra Racing for Enthusiasts

Val Brooks announced at the National Final that she will be launching a new online Community and will be hosting a series of 'just for fun' races from September to November.  Anyone taking part in the Challenge can join in.  Details can be found at http://carsmim.spruz.com/ .  All you need to do is visit the site and register. You will then become part of the 'Cars Maths in Motion' Community for teachers and can get involved in the extra races or just observe what's going on.  There is no cost involved in this.  Although not strictly associated with the Challenge, the Community will no doubt become a forum where ideas are exchanged.

24th June 2010/The National Final

Click here for a full report.

4th December 2009/Peel Park Primary School, Bradford

What follows is an extract from an email we received from Garth Hall, the teacher running the Challenge at Peel Park Primary.........let's hope there are others like this.......

I'm sending this 'car' to you for Ikrah, a Year 5 girl at Peel Park. It's for the Abu Dhabi fastest lap challenge.  I usually keep an eye out for promising Maths in Motion children from about year 2. With Ikrah (quiet but determined) on the outside of most friendship groups, I was sure by the middle of year 3 that she was using long multiplication very well. To cut a long story short, by March of her Year 4 I tested her out and brought her into the 'Cars' group to see how she coped with the older Gifted and Talented pupils. It only took 3 weeks for her to prove herself to the rest of the teams and she managed a 5th place to our last year's National Final qualifying team - no mean effort!

The 1st team (our all girl team) sort of adopted her. Her new found confidence in herself as a person (not just as a mathematician) made her bloom and instead of being on the outside of all groups she is now a leader in her own right and welcome in all of them. She is not a remotely quiet pupil any longer and still has the determination to succeed!

Chalk another one up to Maths in Motion!

G A Hall

18th November 2009/British Science Association CREST Awards

We are delighted to announce that we have been accepted as a linked scheme for the British Science Association's CREST Bronze Award scheme. CREST is Britain's largest national award scheme for project work in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) subjects - 25,000 young people achieved CREST Awards last year alone. CREST gives young people (10+) opportunities to explore real world subjects in an exciting way - just what we are trying to do too!

We hope that by entering into this scheme, young people will be encouraged and motivated to have their Jaguar Cars Maths in Motion work accredited nationally: a Bronze CREST Award is a significant achievement indeed and if we can help them in some small way to achieve this then so much the better!

If you are interested in registering your students, there is an information sheet that you can download from 'Online Resources' or you can always email us if you are not sure what to do next.  Even more information can be found on http://www.britishscienceassociation.org/web/ccaf/CREST/index.htm.

6th October 2009/ Woodside Junior School

We were delighted to receive this piece of work by Sarah and Denis and their teacher, Bexley Penhaligon, wrote this:-

"Working in pairs, the Year 5 children had to write a persuasive argument on a subject they felt strongly about.  First they had to discuss it, draw up a list of main points and then write it together. Sarah and Denis chose Cars Maths in Motion as they felt very strongly about how valuable it had been for their maths learning and how much fun it was.  Furthermore they had been part of the team for the CMiM Final this year."

The piece tells everyone what is involved in the 'Cars' software and just shows what can be achieved.  Well done to both of you and thanks for letting us reproduce your work for others to see.  Let's hope it inspires anyone who reads it!  You just need to click on the writing below to make it bigger - you will need Adobe Reader v8 or 9 to do this.

27th May 2009 / Our Visit to P. S. Jordi School, La Roca del Vallès, Barcelona

Although not strictly part of the Jaguar Cars Maths in Motion Challenge, we were invited to visit the school by Paquita Terrada, who is one of the maths teachers there.  The school is taking part in a European schools project co-ordinated by Val Brooks known as 'e-twinning'.  The project uses the 'Cars Maths in Motion' software as its base and quite a few schools in the UK are involved in it. Paquita and her pupils are 'twinned' the Wendy Reid and her pupils at the Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School in Lincolnshire and they have spent quite a lot of time learning the 'language' of Cars Maths in Motion to get to this point. The day of our visit happened to coincide with the big football match between Manchester United and Barcelona so we thought that the students might just be a bit preoccupied with that but how wrong could we be!  When we arrived, Paquita introduced us to them and we then spent the next 2 hours or so enthusiastically setting up cars to race at Hungaroring!  The subject of the big match did crop up but the least said about that the better!

After the race, we presented the winners with some 'Jaguar' prizes and left having had a great time.  Thanks to Paquita and her pupils for making us so welcome and for giving us a memorable experience for all the right reasons.  Here are some pictures.....

Paquita watching proceedings! Track measuring with shoelaces! We've won! Brian with the winners