Holy Caribou Competition Results!!

What a fantastic addition to the Caribou Math contest contestants yesterday, as Ms. Charles' grade seven class and some grade four students from ECG joined Mr. Hickey's grade 7 and 8 students and Mr. Freeman's grade six class in writing the fourth contest.  The added interest and competition resulted in some difference in results for some students, as some tried to hang on to their top teir status, while others moved upward from their previous results in prior contests.

I continue to be impressed by the perseverence and effort exhibited by many, many students.  Willing to work through challenging and difficult problems is commendable in and of itself, and its great to see the thinking and strategizing come a little more naturally to each student as the year progresses.

While I don't have the time and space to highlight everyone's great work, I will take a moment to recognize the achievements of some in each category:

In the grade 3/4 division, we had three contestants write for the first time this year.  They did well, scoring higher than the Canadian average in number of correct questions and number of points. One student even finished 240th out of 1319 in Canada, which was 220th out of 1223 in Ontario.  This placed them in the top 17% in the country.  Nya:weh to Ms. Charles for giving them the opportunity and also to Miss Charles for thinking of her fellow classmates when it came to writing the test.

In the grade 5/6 category, there seemed to be a tougher set of questions for our returning class.  We had a new student come out on top, with seven correct responses.  This placed her 612th out of 2000 students in Ontario, 714th out of 2370 in all of Canada.  That is the top 28% in the country.

The influx of a new class in the grade 7/8 group boosted our totals to 45 students overall.  This resulted in some students rising up in the ranks while others fell from more competition.  At ECG, the top student answered 13 questions correctly, returning to the top of the heap at their school.  This placed him 540th out of 1848 in Ontario, 642nd out of 2163 in Canada, or the top 29%.

However, two students from JC Hill placed 1st and 2nd in our district, with 13 questions answered correctly as well.  The only difference from the gentleman from ECG being that the questions may have been worth more points OR the test may have been completed in a quicker time frame.  These two students from JC Hill finished 495th and 523rd in Ontario, good for 585th and 621st in Canada respectively.  That is the top 26 and 29% in the country.

Congratulations to ALL students on competing in a challenging contest.  Your participation is its own reward, as hopefully you are gaining a better understanding of how to strategize a solution to a problem, and growing in your mathematical processes.