The Young Mathematical Story Author (YMSA) competition is the world's first annual international competition set up to encourage young mathematics learners (8-15 years old) from around the world to embed their mathematics learning in a meaningful and engaging context through creating their own mathematical story picture book. This competition is organised by MathsThroughStories.org, and it has been running every year since 2019.

This term, we are inviting Spa Academy Askern pupils to submit entries to the competition.

Examples of last year's international winners and shortlisted stories can be found here (and at the bottom of the page):

 

 

How can I get involved?

Pupils can get involved in one of two ways:

• Take part in the competition in school, through lunchtime clubs. 
• Complete their submission at home and return to school (though school are always here to help out and get you started!)

Stories can be presented in any way; the organisers have released the template at the bottom of the page for use if  pupils would like it. Paper copies are available from the Main Reception for parents/pupils to collect.

 

Closing date

Entries to be submitted to Mr Wardle by Friday 18th March 2022.

 

Awards

• Internationally, the winner in each of the two entry categories will receive an award of £100, and their school will also receive £100. (In case of homeschooled children, if they won, they would get £100 and their nominated local public library would too get £100.)
• The winner will also have their own profile, their school's profile and their winning entry featured on the MathsThroughStories.org website. (Since its launch in March 2017, the website has been visited over 830,000 times by more than 210,000 teachers and parents from almost 210 countries around the world.)

 

​Judging Criteria ​​

• Ability to clearly explain the chosen mathematical concept in the story without assuming readers' knowledge of the topic;
• Ability to embed the chosen mathematical concept in a meaningful context;
• Ability to show how characters' knowledge of the chosen mathematical topic can help them solve a problem(s); 
• Ability to represent the chosen mathematical concept contextually (in words), visually (via page illustrations), and symbolically (via using correct mathematical symbols, notations and language);
• Accuracy of mathematical concepts presented in the story;
• Ability to come up with an engaging plot and story; 
• Gender and ethnicity balance in characters; 
• Overall presentation and standard of writing (e.g. quality of illustrations, the use of punctuation, spelling, etc.)