Although many of this year’s annual math contests were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Senior School math department took the opportunity to celebrate Trinity College School students who had stellar performances on contests held earlier in the school year. During morning chapel service on Monday, June 1st, a fun video featuring the math teachers recognized students who earned Distinction (scoring in the top 25% worldwide) and other honours on the contests, which are sponsored by the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing at the University of Waterloo.

This year, 65 students were able to take part in the contests. Students earning Distinction for the first time receive a pewter pin, and thereafter earn a gold pin each time they achieve Distinction.

In November, students who had performed well on past math contests were invited to write the Canadian Intermediate and Senior Math Contests. Earning Distinction in the intermediate (Grade 9 and 10) contest were Finlay Schieman and Jack Sprayson, with Jack achieving school champion status for TCS. A record total of 16 students wrote the senior contest, with Distinction earned by Grace Lu, Jacky Zhu and Jack Zhang (school champion).

In the Grade 9 Pascal Contest, a record 27 students wrote the test, with six students earning Distinction, including two Junior School students: Valeria Fonseca Ortega, TianTian Dong, Danny Liu, Allen Tang, Nicolas Shi (Grade 7) and Grade 8 student Junhyeong Hong, who was school champion.

Students writing the Grade 10 Cayley Contest earned TCS zone champion status this year. Achieving Distinction on the Cayley were Rizwan Tahir, Finlay Schieman, Uday Talasila, Jack Sprayson (a Grade 9 student), Yixin Xiang and Anna Yang. Anna was not only our school champion in the Cayley, but she also placed in the top four of all students across Canada!

On the Hypatia Contest for Grade 11, Distinction recipients included Taliesin Shepherd, Yena Lee, Michael Yip, Lily Lai, Eric Wang, Mark Zhang and Grace Lu. Grace was the school champion and also scored amongst the top four students nationally, a tremendous achievement.

While we were saddened that our Grade 12 students could not write the Euclid Contest, and that the demanding problem-solving contests at each grade level had to be cancelled, our mathletes had great fun this spring challenging themselves with the Antiviral Math Contest. Hosted by the University of Toronto Schools throughout April and May, our mathletes competed well in these events and consistently kept TCS on the leaderboard.

Math contests are a great way for students to stretch their thinking and further develop the problem-solving skills which are so needed in the 21st century. Any students interested in taking part in next year’s contests are encouraged to reach out to their math teacher or speak with Mr. Matt Fox or Ms. Kristen Chen in the math department.