Maths Olympiad Years 7-8
Senior Division
About The Program
The Senior Division Maths Olympiad (Division S) is an inter-school competition that has been specifically designed to challenge and extend high potential/high achieving students in Years 7 and 8.
It provides an opportunity for students from around Australia and New Zealand to compete as part of a team, while striving for individual excellence. It is a prestigious and highly regarded competition that builds on the Maths Olympiad Junior for upper primary students and further develops the students’ knowledge, skills, and achievements in problem solving.
The main aims of the competition are to:
- Provide an opportunity for high achieving secondary students to test their maths problem solving skills and compete against teams from other schools.
- Provide teachers with a means to evaluate and benchmark their students' capabilities and progress, as compared to other students competing in the competition.
- Consolidate and build on the strategies covered in the Maths Olympiad Junior and develop even greater creativity, ingenuity and flexibility in problem solving.
- Stimulate students' enthusiasm for, and enjoyment of, maths problem solving.
- Allow high achieving students to showcase their skills and abilities and be recognised for their efforts and achievement.
2025 Competition Dates
- Competition One - Wednesday, 7th May 2025
- Competition Two - Wednesday, 11th June 2025
- Competition Three - Wednesday, 30th July 2025
- Competition Four - Wednesday, 10th September 2025
Applications for date changes can be made in the Members’ area
Who Can Enter?
- The competition is aimed at high achieving/ high potential and gifted Year 7 and 8 students (and up to Year 9 in New Zealand).
- Registration is only open to schools in Australia and New Zealand, as well as Australian International Schools.
- Individual registration is not possible.
- Schools can enter an unlimited number of teams with up to 30 students per team.
Program Format
The Maths Olympiad is not a teaching program, it is a prestigious inter-school competition that presents high achieving students with a wide variety of problems, designed to challenge and extend them individually. The aim is to provide a level playing field for all students, while encouraging them to think independently in solving the problems presented.
- The Olympiad comprises four separate contests, held roughly six weeks apart, starting in early Term 2.
- Students are required to complete all four contests.
- Each contest paper comprises 5 questions, worth 1 mark each, and must be completed in a specified time-frame of 30 minutes.
- Contest papers are completed individually by each student with no collaboration during contests.
- Each contest is held under exam conditions in the classroom and marked by the teacher in charge who then submits the results to APSMO via the Members' Portal.
- Following each contest paper, APSMO recommends that the solutions be reviewed and discussed as a group to enhance learning.
Program Resources
APSMO provides resources to support teachers in identifying the students who may be suitable for participating in the Maths Olympiad competition, as well as providing some initial preparation resources and guidance on running the competition. The resources we provide include:
- An APSMO evaluation tool that supports teachers by helping them to identify where students sit on the learning continuum in terms of their problem solving ability and potential, and determining their suitability for the Maths Olympiad.
- A Preparation Kit in Term 1 that contains a selection of problems covering the skills and terminology that will be used in the contest papers including fully worked solutions.
- A set of Follow-Up Questions based on the problems and strategies in each paper that are designed to engage the students in further, ongoing mathematical challenges.
- Maths Olympiad Senior questions are linked to the appropriate content descriptions in the Australian Curriculum.
- Past Maths Olympiad papers are available in the Members’ Portal to practice with.
- Resource Books which are available for purchase on this website that contain compilations of questions from both the Year 5 & 6 and Year 7 & 8 Maths Olympiads.
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