Kiwi kids help set new world record

Tens of thou­sands of Kiwi kids and their teach­ers have added, sub­trac­ted, mul­ti­plied and divided their way to a new world record.

They’ve spent all Wednesday and Thursday chal­len­ging other stu­dents around the world in quick-fire 60 second online maths games as part of the world’s biggest edu­ca­tion event — World Maths Day 2010.

We are now await­ing con­firm­a­tion that a new Guinness World Record for the Largest Online Maths Competition has been set, with stu­dents from over 230 coun­tries around the world involved.

Final res­ults are still being veri­fied and col­lated, but classes from Devon Intermediate in New Plymouth and Upper Moutere School near Motueka have placed within the Top 50 classes in the world in the 9–13 age category.

Rob Haddock, Principal of Tahuna School, has taken out New Zealand’s top hon­ours in the over 18 cat­egory for Teachers and Parents, although he noted that his final score was nowhere near that of his son, who was in the 9 — 13 age category.

“It’s a fant­astic per­form­ance from our Kiwi kids once again, and I con­grat­u­late them all for giv­ing it their very best” said Yvonne Blanch, the New Zealand CEO of 3P Learning, the com­pany that hosts World Maths Day. “2010 has more than exceeded our expect­a­tions. We’ve man­aged to break the world record set last year, with a record num­ber of stu­dents from around the world cor­rectly answer­ing 479,732,613 ques­tions over the 48 hour period.”

“We have had amaz­ing feed­back from schools about the enthu­si­asm World Maths Day has gen­er­ated around maths in their schools. Students are show­ing a real pas­sion for num­bers and over the 48 hours they’ve shown an increase of both speed and accur­acy in answer­ing basic maths ques­tions,” said Yvonne Blanch.

Once res­ults have been veri­fied, calls will be made to the top New Zealand place-getters in each cat­egory to attend a live play­off at the Planet2010 Conference at SkyCity in Auckland on 13 March.

Students around the world are already look­ing for­ward to next year’s chal­lenge. In 2011 the World Education Games will be hos­ted in Auckland. New Zealand stu­dents will be able to wel­come the young people of the world to com­pete in expan­ded format chal­lenges over the course of a month, incor­por­at­ing World Maths Day, World Spelling Day and World Science Day.

“Plans are already under­way to make the very first World Education Games an event to remem­ber” said Yvonne Blanch “and I’m thrilled and proud that New Zealand has been chosen to host this pres­ti­gi­ous event.”

2010 Student Winners:
Ages 5–8 Avit P, Thailand (36,202 ques­tions)
Ages 9–13 Kaya G, 12 years, Australia (43,007 ques­tions)
Ages 14–18 David A, Australia (26,662 questions)

2010 School Winners
Ages 5–8 Our Lady of Lourdes Primary, Class 5EA, UK, (243,701 ques­tions)
Ages 9–13 Cempaka Schools, Class F1Y7 Team MO, Malaysia (418,363 ques­tions)
Ages 14–18 Cempaka Schools, Class F3Y9 Team A, Malaysia (365,387 questions)