On Wednesday 5th March 2008 it was World Maths Day. To mark the event a website was created to try to create a world record by answering 50 million mathematical questions correctly in one day.
Children were to register on the site, create a 'Mathlete' and compete against other children from around the world by answering as many questions as they could in one minute. Prior to the event, all the boys had a session in the ICT suite to create their Mathlete and to get some practise.
On the day, the ICT suite was timetabled to allow all boys the opportunity to compete in real time against other children from around the globe. The boys loved the experience and improved their mental arithmetic skills considerably, with many boys taking the opportunity to play on the site during their evenings at home.
A world map was set up in the suite to allow children to plot the countries they competed against. It was very reassuring to observe the success rate of our boys against children of similar age from other countries. The boys at the junior school helped set a new World Record of 182,455,169 total correct answers.
