16 November 2020

Students at Lumen Christi School, Point Cook, have shown a strong commitment to mathematics and their success is growing.

The school’s work in mathematics investigations has been rewarded and acknowledged through excellent results at this year’s Mathematical Association of Victoria (MAV) Maths Talent Quest (MTQ) state and national award ceremony, during which all of the school’s winners from 2020 received their awards. For Lumen Christi School, this included national finalists Juan Camilo (Year 4), Liliana and Scarlett (Year 5), as well as state MTQ award winners Aarya (Year 3), Owen (Year 5) and Thiressh (Year 6). There was additional exciting news for Thiressh, who was also presented with the prestigious Jim Trotter Award for most outstanding overall upper primary entry in Victoria. In the challenging year that 2020 has been, it is an outstanding effort by these children to achieve this recognition and the school is very proud of them.

This continues a developing tradition at Lumen Christi School which, since first entering the MTQ in 2017, has had over 30 individual and group projects involving over 70 students receive Distinction or High Distinction awards, including five state winners and a national award winner.

The MTQ program at Lumen Christi has been supported from the start by the school’s maths leader Mark Gleeson, who is also a regular judge of the MTQ and hosts a Year 6 maths games day for MAV each year. While much of the work is done at home as a passion project by the students, regular feedback is given throughout to support the students in their investigations.

‘I believe deeply in the idea of the Maths Talent Quest as it allows children to create their own explorations of mathematical ideas that extend their understanding of the Mathematics curriculum and find a real purpose for maths in the world’, said Mark. ‘The students are very proud of their achievements and many have been involved in the competition since Lumen Christi began, showing that they value the application of mathematics to investigate the world.’