OAT Matholympics

Organisation

OAT Academies

Years Funded

2020/2021

Total Amount

6663

Beneficiaries

1000 young people

Area Of Focus

Love of learning and study support

Project Summary

The Ormiston Academies Trust (OAT) Matholympics Programme involved termly maths-based competitions across OAT academies where students were set a series of maths based challenges. The project was the first time a national, trust-wide enrichment programme for maths had been developed and established at OAT.

Winners of the challenges received Amazon vouchers and support for their academies maths department for enrichment experiences. Another part of the project was OAT celebrating National Numeracy Day on May 10th. As a part of this celebration 10 academies took part in the “Make your favourite number challenge” with 3 winners decided across primary and secondary academies.

Challenges and Lessons Learnt 

The main challenge for this project was the COVID-19 pandemic. The original plan to deliver the final challenge in London was not possible, resulting in an underspend. However, instead of an in-person final, an online final was orchestrated that allowed 11 teams to compete in a safe and fun way.

The majority of outcomes and outputs initially set out for the project were met. The initial target of 5,000 students taking part in the project was not met as instead 1,000 submissions were received over the 3 termly challenges. The project also did offer all the academies the potential to set up maths-based teams, however not all academies took up the opportunity and only 34 teams were established.

The main lessons learnt in the development and delivery of the programme are that for success and support of the programme there needs to be a collaboration with OAT curriculum and enrichment teams, as well as lead practitioners in the maths department taking on a more involved role in project management. Another lesson learnt was to more effectively engage academies and maths heads of the department to complete the evaluation of the programme.

Beneficiary Feedback 

Student Feedback Quotes- suggested activities to support future engagement in maths:

  • I would like to hear about where you would use the maths that you are being taught and how it will help in everyday life.”
  • Countdown”
  • Use maths in a practical way.”

 

Staff Feedback Quotes- will be used by OAT Maths department to determine future challenges and competition content:

  • The Matholympics is a good start to help with Maths enrichment”.
  • “I feel kind of disappointed by the final. As it didn’t feel like there was much maths – one round of quick-fire questions where our technology was quite slow. Don’t get me wrong the students enjoyed the event but I think were disadvantaged as they aren’t the kind of students that like to dress up or do presentations.”
70+ OAT student engaged
25 STEM related social projects
4722 funded to support the project

Highlights

Case Studies

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Years Funded

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Amount funded

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Beneficiaries

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Area Of Focus

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OAT STEMFest

Organisation

OAT Academies

Years Funded

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Amount funded

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Beneficiaries

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Area Of Focus

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OAT Matholympics

Organisation

OAT Academies

Years Funded

2020/2021

Amount funded

£6663

Beneficiaries

1000 young people

Area Of Focus

Love of learning and study support

James is the Chief Executive officer of Ormiston Trust. He has worked as an organisation advisor in the private, public and voluntary sectors, helping organisations to grow sustainably over the medium to long term. He has helped charities for over 20 years in the fields of strategic development, partnership setup, programme and project delivery.

Poppy is the Youth Engagement and Partnership Officer at Ormiston Trust, responsible for coordinating our team of Young Advisors and developing effective working relationships with external organisations. She is currently studying ‘Politics, International Studies and Global Sustainable Development’ at Warwick University and previously worked as Board Advisor for a non-profit youth-focused organisation in Croydon. She has experience in activism work – attending COP26 with environmental education company Force of Nature and had been a member of the UK Youth Parliament for many years, speaking on environmental issues in the House of Commons for its ‘Make Your Mark’ campaign.

Tom heads up Comms and Youth Engagement here at Ormiston Trust. His role focuses mainly on helping run the Youth Advisory Council, as well as heading up our social media accounts and planning events. His creative roots lie in journalism, music and theatre as well as horticulture and creative producing, having been involved in a variety of workshops and projects. Tom is passionate about the environment and politics and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Birmingham in International Relations.

Fiona is the Grants Assistant at Ormiston Trust and in her role she supports the Grants team. Previously, she worked in the City for 10 years, firstly as a dealer on the floor of the London Stock Exchange and then as an equity salestrader.  

Samia is a business and ICT Teacher with over 20 years of leadership experience in Education, working with leaders from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 5. Her experience has ranged from working as an Acting Head Teacher to a Deputy for an Education Trust. Some of the key highlights from her education career have included building schools and setting up education provisions, including a teaching school, and winning several National awards. Samia is passionate about ensuring the young people in her care have the best possible experience and has always led by example by sending her own children to the schools she has been a part of.

Ray leads the youth engagement, partnerships and fundraising work streams at Ormiston Trust, in particular having strategic oversight of how we as an organisation can embed the voices of our young people in everything we do, and how we can work with partner organisations to maximise shared outcomes and opportunities.

His background is in community project development and funding, having worked with charities, schools, and local authorities in East Anglia to develop a plethora of projects including primary-secondary school transition, award-winning youth amateur theatre, social prescribing in rural GP practices, and youth commissioning boards, for which he was recognised as a Prime Minister’s Point of Light.

Ray is a global health and medicine graduate, alongside his work at Ormiston, he is a hospital doctor and public health academic. He is also an #iWill Ambassador and national #iWill Partnership Board member.

Anne is Finance Manager at Ormiston Trust and has worked for Ormiston Trust for over 30 years, overseeing the property portfolio and asset management. She combines her work at the Trust with voluntary community work and has raised thousands of pounds to enhance leisure and education opportunities for young people in disadvantaged communities. 

Karlene is Finance Manager at Ormiston Trust and has been handling the Financial Management of Ormiston Trust since 2014. Her background is in Financial Services with 20 years working in the industry and she has a passion for systems, processes and spreadsheets to enable good finance management. 

Aneela is the Head of Education at Ormiston Trust. Prior to joining Ormiston Trust, she was Head of Professional Development and School Improvement at Beaconhouse Group, overseeing the professional development of over 8000 teachers and implementing systems for school improvement across 200 international schools, in the Southeast region. Prior to this, she worked at Universities in the UAE, where she taught on the Bachelor of Education and Diploma programmes, and previous to this she was a Lead Advisor for Nord Anglia Education services, working with head teachers and principals to raise educational standards across schools in Abu Dhabi.

Melissa is a Programme Management Officer at Ormiston Trust. In her role she supports the #WeWill programme management, and works closely with the monitoring & evaluation, social action toolkit & skills, and youth engagement teams. She completed her undergraduate degree in International Development at the University of Sussex, and her postgraduate degree in Global Health and Development at UCL. Over the last eight years, she has dedicated much of her time to working with non-profit organisations in the UK, Nigeria, China, and Tanzania.