On Thursday 1^st September, Geelong High School hosted the Victorian Challenge and Enrichment Maths Games Day, where selected students from Years 7-10 participated in highly engaging problem solving tasks which required flexible thinking, collaboration and numeracy skills. We were fortunate to host the event for the Mathematics Association of Victoria and welcomed high-achieving students from North Geelong Secondary College who joined us for the day. The students from both schools collaborated with (and competed against) each other enthusiastically to solve a variety of strategy games designed by Andrew Lorimer-Derham, founder and creator of ThinkSquare and MirroGram. The most notable games were a near-impossible task to fit 12 pentominoes on a hundreds grid and an adaptation to the popular snakes and ladders game (with one group in such an intense battle for the win that they had to end with a draw). Students reflected on the day enthusiastically, describing it as fun, challenging, interesting, enjoyable, maths, strategic, cool, entertaining and exciting. Well done students!

Lauren Chapman (nee McClure) – Maths LAL/Learning Specialist and MLYNS Numeracy