After a hiatus in 2024, the FOBISIA Secondary Maths Competition has returned! This year’s edition, hosted by Garden International School (GIS), featured 176 students from 26 schools across 16 Asian cities. Competing over two busy days of brain-busting puzzles and problems, students put their maths skills to the test to see who would emerge victorious.
Kicking things off on Thursday evening, students broke the ice playing human bingo, and got to know all the nooks and crannies of the school campus by doing a scavenger hunt. After a well-earned dinner and a good night’s sleep, the competitive elements began on Friday morning and stretched into Saturday afternoon.
Students initially completed the individual round, after which there were a variety of team rounds, ranging from codebreaking and logic problems to mathematical history, a crossnumber, independent research and the ever-popular maths relay. There was also a fun and demanding maths carousel, with 10 different activity stations set-up, each one tackled on rotation.
“The math round consisted of a lot of questions that required thinking, especially the individual round! However, our team, GISKL Team A, collaborated really well to solve each question after question. I’m very grateful that I had my teammates for the challenges and I’m also thankful to all the GIS teachers who worked hard to create the questions for the individual round, team rounds, carousel, and crossnumber round!” says Kyle P.
Ayush S added, “The codebreaker round was the hardest for me because I didn’t have a lot of knowledge about it. I barely knew what a Caesar Shift is but this round let us experience some skills for code breaking. Even though I did not know any code breaking skills, I got to learn some which is a part of brain development.”
It wasn’t just all fun and maths; there was also the serious business of a trip to SuperPark Malaysia, the indoor playground, where students had a great deal of fun climbing, jumping, bopping, and more. Perhaps the highlight was seeing the ginormous stack of pizza boxes arriving to feed the masses!
Arthur W shares, “Superpark was a great experience for all of us as we had fun with other schools. One of the best parts was when we tried to beat each other’s high score in football bowling. After a lot of fun, we had some amazingly delicious pizza.”
To cap things off, Saturday evening saw the Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony. Students were treated to a true taste of Malaysian cuisine whilst listening to traditional gamelan music.
“I think it was an awesome experience for me to participate in the Fobisia Secondary Maths competition! Along with the maths and the super park, another highlight was the food. It was great to have amazing food after working hard in maths”, says Sooho K (Daniel).
Junhee LEE (Jamie) also chimed in, “Even though the competition was all about math, the food was definitely something we couldn’t miss! At the end of the event, we had a gala dinner where we got to try loads of different dishes and they were all so yummy! A lot of the students were visiting Malaysia for the first time, so it was a really fun way to learn about Malaysia’s different cultures through its food. We talked about what we liked best and shared our thoughts on the dishes. By the end of the evening, everyone had full stomachs and some great memories of Malaysia’s amazing food!”
Claire shares her reflection of the competition, “It was such a good experience as we got to meet people from other schools and even other countries. I’m so grateful I had the chance to take part in this amazing competition!”
Ryeona couldn’t agree more, “Meeting people from other schools was one of my favourite parts of the competition. I met people from Korea, China, Singapore, Indonesia and more. They gave us the opportunity to work with people of different ages, schools and countries during the icebreaker activities, and I’m really grateful for that. I’m also thankful to all the teachers who helped us socialise and enjoy everything. We all had so much fun in all the activities and rounds they prepared for us!”
The GIS team came in 5th and 8th in this year’s FOBISIA Secondary Maths Competition and demonstrated a great sense of resilience, teamwork and determination throughout the competition. Congratulations to all students who participated – they did so with incredible enthusiasm and mathematical proficiency!
By Ms. Natalie Clark, Head of Mathematics – BSc. (Hons), PGCE, and
Mr. Jon Dancyger, Key Stage 3 Maths Leader – BSc. (Hons), PGCE
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