PMC Bonus Round Results 2016

PMC Bonus Round Results February 2016 are here

We are pleased to announce that the 2015/2016 Primary Maths Challenge has been completed and the awards for the Bonus Round have been made.

72 000 pupils in 1800 schools entered in November, with 1554 pupils who scored 21 or more being invited to take part in the Bonus Round in February 2016.

In the Bonus Round 2 pupils scored full marks, 10 scored 24/25 and 21 scored 23/25. These 33 pupils will be receiving Gold medals. 118 pupils will receive Silver medals and 352 will receive Bronze medals. Congratulations to all the pupils who were invited to take part in the Bonus Round and especially to the medal winners.

We received very positive feedback from pupils:

Quite tricky. Hard to know how to solve them.. sometimes I know what you are asking, but don’t know how to give it to you.
I liked the question about the mad teachers!
I really enjoyed the challenge.
Tough to do within the time constraints.
There were lots more shape problems this time… I don’t like them.
Very challenging, but still really fun. It is good that it gives a simpler question, then much more challenging questions. I loved it.
I like the funny names used.

And from teachers:

A challenging paper. Some of the clues were well disguised with red herrings. The paper was particularly taxing for pupils who have yet to develop abstract thinking (which is, of course, the object of the exercise).
I like the variety of ‘situations’ in the paper. It is interesting and it tests the application of mathematics.
A challenging paper with a varied selection of engaging and stimulating questions. Serves as good practice material for highly motivated pupils.
Administration is smooth and straightforward: Clear instructions given… easy to follow.
Tricky! Extremely well written questions with humour to amuse the pupils.
What a challenging paper! It was really good to see my most able mathematicians really challenged. They came out of the room with big smiles and told me, ‘That was really hard’.
Outstanding problems. I look forward to sharing these with the rest of the class.

If your school has a medal winner, why not contact your local press and ask them to include an article on him or her. If you contact the MA office we'll help by supplying a press release pro-forma for you.

You might be interested to read about Joe Benton, a Gold medal PMC winner who went on to represent the UK in the International Mathematics Olympiad. An interview with Joe is published in the Spring 2016 volume of Primary Mathematics.

The next round of PMC will take place in November 2016. Put a date in your diary to remind you to order your packs in September. Orders placed before October 10th qualify for the Early Bird discount.
The next round of PMC will take place in the week beginning November 14th 2016.

1428 Bonus Round OMR sheets were received in time to be entered into the February results. The distribution is shown here: