Competitive Contest Team
Interested in joining our Contest Team?
Competitive Contest Team
The Competitive Contest Team is an exclusive program free of charge for the top students in Grades 3-12 who would like to compete nationally and internationally representing Spirit of Math Schools. This is a series of intensive high-level coaching sessions for students who are looking for an extreme challenge. Classes will start in September and run until May.
Students must submit an application and participate in an entrance competition. Only the top 6 - 12 students per level will be selected for the Competitive Contest Team. Submitting an application does not guarantee acceptance. For any additional questions, please contact contests@spiritofmath.com.
Apply Here!The Application Process
The deadline to submit the following documents is June 9, 2024.
- For grades 3 - 4, two honour roll math contest certificates.*
- For grades 5 - 12, three honour roll math contest certificates.*
- A recommendation letter from your math teacher at day school or SoM.
- A written paragraph on a mathematics topic which you would like to learn about in no less than 200 words. Explain why you choose the topic and what aspects interest you the most.
- For grades 9 - 12, a recent day school report card with a minimum of 92% or A+ in mathematics.
* Honour roll scores are 80% or above. Please include screenshots of the contest scores and highlight the applicant's name. For students registered in SoM grades 1-6, BrightSpace screenshots of the CNML, SOMC, or Mathematica results are accepted.
Apply Here!All applicants will be invited to compete for the top 6-12 positions within their level. The entrance competition focuses on reasoning and problem solving and has a total of ten questions.
| Grades 3 to 8 | Grades 9 to 12 | |
| Competition Date | Week of June 17th | Week of June 17th |
| Format | Virtual | In person at Headquarter Campus |
| Multiple-Choice Question (1 mark each) | Four questions | Four questions |
| Short Answer Question (2 marks each) | Five questions | Four questions |
| Full solution question (5 marks each) | One question | Two questions |
| Total number of marks | 19 points | 22 points |
We suggest the following material to practice for the entrance competition:
| Grades 3 and 4 | Grades 5 and 6 | Grades 7 and 8 | Grades 9 and 10 | Grades 11 and 12 |
Various grade-specific contest papers, such as Mathematica, Math Kangaroo.
Overview
To stay in the program, students need to be active participants and contribute to the learning of other members which will give them the full benefit from the coaching experience. As members of the club, students are expected to:
- Attend Competitive Contest Team sessions.
- For grades 3 - 10, a maximum absence of two sessions is accepted.
- For grades 11 - 12, a maximum absence of three sessions is accepted.
- Compete in at least three prestigious math competitions during the school year
- Participate in team competitions, as organized by the coach.
- Complete one group discovery project and presentation.
- Organize and attend additional discover topic meetings.
- Participate in your coaching sessions and be engaged in out of classroom activities, such as commenting on online posts and discussions between sessions.
Application Fee
$30
Program Fee
FREE
Travel to Competitions
Students participating in the Competitive Contest Team Grades 10 to 12 must be able to travel to national and international math competitions. To ensure the safety and guidance of our students, they need to be accompanied by one parent/guardian to all out of town events. Furthermore, expenses for food, accommodation, and travel will not be covered by Spirit of Math. We are actively exploring options for financial aid to assist with the expenses, but please note that there is no certainty in securing such aid.
| Grades 3 to 8 | Grades 9 to 10 | Grades 11 to 12 | |
| Location | Virtual | In-person at Headquarter Campus** | In-person at Headquarter Campus** |
| Day/Time | Weekends at 10:00 am or 12:15pm ET*** | Wednesdays 5pm *** | Wednesdays at 7:15pm*** |
| Duration | 2 hours | 2 hours | 2 hours |
| Frequency |
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- Grades 3 to 4: 12 Students
- Grades 5 to 6: 12 Students
- Grades 7 to 8: 12 Students
- Grades 9 to 10: 12 Students
- Grades 11 to 12: 6-8 Students
- Grades 3-8: Noetic, MOEMS, Mustang Math Tournament, Purple Comet, Canadian Innovation Math Contest
- Grades 9-12: Purple Comet, Harvard MIT Math Tournament in Boston, John Hopkins Math Tournament in Baltimore
Last year, our Competitive Contest Teams achieved global domination while taking part in the Purple Comet Math Meet and the Noetic Learning Math Contest (NLMC)
All Spirit of Math teams placed in the top 20%.
Our Middle School team was named the best team in Canada!
High School Team (Grade 9/10):
- Yash Chavhan
- Timothy Hsiao
- Alina Kotchetkov
- Anton Lazarchyk
- Peter Shi
Middle School teams (Grade 5/6 and Grade 7/8):
Team 1 (Grade 5/6) - Top Team in Canada
- Sharvin Sundaram
- Berton Yang
- Shashwath Manjunath
- Aarav Apte
- Richard Su
Team 2 (Grade 7/8)
- Keshev Gupta
- Emma Gu
- Madhavan Srivastava
- Megan Li
- Alinah Surani
- Jordan He
39,078 students participated in NLMC this past year and 50% of our students secured the National Honour Roll achievement (the top 10% of students).
Grade 4 competition:
Honour roll:
- Oliver Qin
- Emily Chang
- Sebastian Gu
- Yimin Wang
- Lucas Wong
- Ryan Patil
- Amirreza Mousavi
- Aneesh Arvind
- Liam Plener
- Myra Kalra
- Chaitanya Reddy Maram
Honourable mention:
- Pravyansh Tak
- Dhakshita Vijay
- Luke Cheung
- Sofia Lee
- Alvin Zhu
Grade 5 competition:
Honour roll:
- Bryan Zhang
- Vidit Gupta
- Andy Li
- Angela Yang
- Athena Zhang
- Lam Nguyen
Honourable mention:
- Vihaan Anil
- Arthur Zhang
- Sihi Shivaprasad
Grade 6 competition:
Honour roll:
- Richard (Ricky) Su
- Harshitha Rajesh
- Jayden Chen
- William Mu
- Shashwath Manjunath
- Berton Yang
- Luke Chan
- Nolan Chuang
- Sharvin Sundaram
Honourable mention:
- Aarav Apte
Grade 7 competition:
Honour roll:
- Keshav Gupta
- Mason Compagnoni
- Max Wu
Honourable mention:
- Madhavan Srivastava
- Nevaan Gupta
- Carter Lee
- William Trippen
- Rachel Li
- Sou Yamauchi
Grade 8 competition:
Honour roll:
- Maggie Guo
- Rain Rao
- Yunan Chen
- Alinah Surani
- Liam Chuang
Honourable mention:
- Jinxiu Luo
- Jordan He
- Megan Li
- Nathan Dumbi
- Emma Gu
- Jeslyn Chui
Guest Speaker
Associate Professor Zsuzsanna Dancso from the School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Sydney will be our Guest Speaker for 2023-2024.
Interested in hearing from our Guest Speaker from last year?
Discovery Topics
Besides the regular coaching sessions students will be completing one independent research project - the Discovery Topic. The purpose of the Discovery Topic is for students to explore advanced math concepts through collaborative research. Students will develop a great understanding of this math topic and will be able to present their learning.
Discovery Topic Presentations
2023-2024 Spirit of Math Discovery Topic Presentations (Grades 3 & 4): Graph Theory
2023-2024 Spirit of Math Discovery Topic Presentations (Grades 5 & 6): Game Theory
2023-2024 Spirit of Math Discovery Topic Presentations (Grades 7 & 8): Vectors
2023-2024 Spirit of Math Discovery Topic Presentations (Grade 9+): Markov Chains
Our Coaches 2024 - 2025
Seema Gupta is a Junior Competitive Contest Coach. She earned her MSc in mathematics from C.C.S University in India. She has been working as a teacher for Grades 7 and 8 at Spirit of Math Schools in Vancouver, Canada, for more than seven years. She organized math competitions in the United States and guided students on how to handle challenging math questions using strong strategies & critical thinking. She encourages students to take an active and engaging role in their learning by facilitating opportunities for inquiry, collaboration, and reflection. She actively participates as a volunteer at BC schools and helps organize math competitions. Besides teaching, she loves to go camping and spending time with her family.
Isa Juman-Yassin is a senior at the University of Toronto, majoring in Mathematics with minors in Political Science and Religion. A generalist at heart, Isa’s areas of study span mathematics, philosophy, political theory, literature, and more. With the experience of a broad education, Isa is concerned with the big picture of math and brings unique perspectives on the role and limits of math, educational pathways, and problem-solving. A Spirit of Math alumnus and a lifelong student of mathematics, Isa has competed successfully in many Canadian math contests. He strives to get his students to understand the connections and intuitions behind complex math topics. In his spare time, he plays chess, reads old books, and writes.
Student Testimonials
Junior Students
I liked that instructors gave many math contests to us to solve and teach us how to solve the hardest questions. I also like the Discovery Topic Presentation that we have to do.
I liked the group contests like Noetic, and I also liked when we got into groups, and we solved questions. Basically, I like working in a group.
Senior Students
I liked how clear the coach was when explaining all the problems and providing interesting questions to work on.
I really loved the discovery topics this year because I have never really learnt about different mathematical proofs.
Parent Testimonials
Challenging!
The team provides opportunities for students to participate in national and international math contests which otherwise are more challenging to register and get proctoring for. Weekly and monthly problem sets and quizzes encourage to explore and learn new math topics. The most important part are the inspirational peers, fun to study with and to stay motivated.
Appreciation!
I highly appreciate the Competitive Contest Team. My daughter, Lauren, has been a part of the team since it started. She is a talented kid and loves math. She enjoys the team very much and gets a chance to work with some really talented and hard-working kids. Through the club, Lauren got to explore some interesting math topics and finished some group projects with other kids. Also, she got to compete in some challenging math contests. I will strongly recommend it to other parents and encourage kids to apply for the Competitive Contest Team.
