Maths whiz kids win again | Manawatu-Wanganui News | Local News in Manawatu-Wanganui

Most of us wouldn't know our algebra from our elbow, but there's a quartet of St George's School boys who are hard to beat when it comes to sums.

The foursome of James Ellwood, Isaac Bell, Daniel Zhang and Christian Conder took out the Year 8 title at Wednesday's Mathex competition for Wanganui primary and intermediate schools.

What makes them a little bit special is that the same quartet won the Year 7 event last year, while James, Daniel and Christian were part of the team that won the Year 5 title and was third in Year 6.

Even allowing for a gremlin in the works this year, the St George's Year 8 team answered all 20 questions correctly.

Question 8 showed a rectangle with right angled triangles on two sides and the students had to calculate the area of that shape. By their own admission the boys said they arrived at the correct answer by guess work rather than calculation.

The event was held at Wanganui Intermediate School and its principal Charles Oliver said question was incorrect and had caused "some confusion" for the competitors.

"Unfortunately the error wasn't spotted until the competition was under way so rather than stop they kept it going," Mr Oliver said yesterday.

"As it was, the winning St George's team was so far ahead that it wouldn't have made any difference to the final outcome," he said.

He said the children know that it they come across a confusing question they leave it and get on to the next one "and this is what they did".

The Year 5 to Year 8 teams have 20 questions to answer, questions that are set by what Mr Oliver called a "keen bunch" of Wanganui teachers who have been involved in Mathex for a number of years.

In the Year 8 event, St George's headed Kaitoke School and Rutherford Junior High, who shared second equal, with Rutherford Junior High also nailing third place,

About 125 teams from Raetihi to Taihape and Marton through to Waverley participated in the regional Mathex.

At the beginning of the competition, a minute's silence was held for Ron Anderson, former principal of Westmere and Gonville Schools, a long-time stalwart of Mathex, who died earlier in the year.

Results -

Year 5: Huntley (Jack Trotter, George Reddish, Joe Reddish and Jetarin Ratana- Paradorn) and Westmere 1 (Sarah Kirk, Jordan Candish, Jennifer Churchhouse and Liam Wilson) 1 equal; St Johns 1 (Alex Burns, David Lin, Evan Ross and Quinn Mailman) and Kaitoke (Alexandra Nicoloff, Kate Belsham, Logan Hughes and Nathanael Coneglan) 2 equal; Durie Hill (Brandon Kidd, Claudia Ryan, Jenny Xu and Grace Macnab) 3.

Year 6: Hunterville (Ben McAlley, Patrick Takurua, Cam Charlton-Smith, Thomas Walshe) 1; Kaitoke (Deve Ou, Tomas Benson, Tim Roebuck, Nusr Ghamri) 2; Taihape (David Frankham, James Hamilton, Molly Chaney, Kelsey Turia) 3.

Year 7: Wanganui Intermediate School (Alan Wang, Jesse De Vincentis, Kyle Ryland and Teine Stokoe) 1; Huntley (Sam Reddish, Sam Henley-King, Benjamin Dawson and Baxter Perry) 2; St Georges 1 (Joseph Redpath, Edward Bennett, Luke Gemmell and Samuel Cliffe) and Wanganui Intermediate School (Methmi Perera, Regan Davey, Ben La Cock and Nathan Luff) 3 equal.

Year 8: St Georges 1 (Christian Conder, Daniel Zhang, Isaac Bell and James Ellwood) 1; Kaitoke (Nadia May Jenner, Georgia Rose Buchanan, Amaan Merchant and Ryan Curry) and Rutherford Junior High (Nic Plane, Matthew Anderson and Jake Payton) 2 equal; Rutherford Junior High School (Bianca Crow, Brianna Hobson, Stephen McDermott and Caius Wrigglesworth) 3.

Number Works n Words scholarship for $450 tuition: Marshall Cliffe, St Johns Hill School.