ISMTF Middle School Competition

Information for ISToulouse families

Some time ago, the International School of Toulouse volunteered to host the ISMTF middle school Mathematics competition in 2015. The International Schools Mathematics Teachers Foundation (ISMTF) has been running competitions for many years and students from the International School of Toulouse have taken part in many of them

They run three competitions every year,

1. The middle school competition for 14 year old
2. The junior competition for 16 year olds
3. the senior competition for 18 year olds

Their continued success depends on schools volunteering to host the events. In recent years, students from the IST have taken part in competitions in Paris, Basel, Vienna, Milan, Luxembourg and Geneva all of which have been fabulous experiences. We hope to have many more and, as such, we are only too glad to take our turn of hosting. The competition takes place between the 27th and 29th of March 2015.

This year the competition will involve 11 students from IST in years 8 and 9 as part of a total of 117 students and 29 visiting teachers from schools from Europe and beyond. We are delighted to welcome all of the schools some of who are coming from as far a field as India, Dubai, Cairo and Tunisia.

Huge Organisiation

Obviously the event has taken a huge amount of preparation lead by the Mathematics department at the school with terrific support from the whole school community. We are so very grateful for all of the support we have from our colleagues, students and parent and governing body. It has been a wonderful coming together of the whole school to work towards a truly international and hopefully very successful event that shows the value of goodwill within the school community. I expect to spend a good deal of time saying thank you after the event and paying back a considerable debt of support that I will owe.

What does it involve?

• This competition will involve 117 students between the ages of 11 and 14 in two competitions.
• The International School of Toulouse has also entered teams and will provide substitutes for any absentees from other schools.
• Students come from International schools in Europe and beyond.
• Students will stay with host families from the International School of Toulouse and Coaches will stay in a hotel in Toulouse.
• The first competition on Saturday takes place in teams of three where students will represent the school they come from.
• The second competition on Sunday involves students competing in teams of 6 where students will be mixed in teams with students from different schools.
• On the Saturday afternoon, there will be an excursion to the Airbus A380 final assembly line and the Aeroscopia aviation museum.
• We are delighted to welcome author Simon Singh as a guest speaker on Saturday where he will talk about his book, Fermat's last Theorem, which is a story of great local significance.

Host Families

A significant part of the experience is that the visiting students are hosted by families rom our school community. This was always a tall order given how small a school we are, but with the very able Friends of IST and the very obliging parent community we are delighted to be able to offer this experience to students. This also allows the school community to be more involved with the event. Thank you to all of the families who are able to help us with this. We are very grateful.

Simon Singh

We are particularly pleased to welcome author Simon Singh to the school for that weekend. He is best know to mathematicians as the author of 'Fermat's last Theorem' which tells the wonderful story of this enigmatic mathematical problem that local mathematician Pierre de Fermat brought to the world's attention and was finally proven by mathematician Andrew Wiles nearly 400 years later. Some students at the IST will have the opportunity to listen to Simon Singh Speak about his latest book 'The Simpsons and their mathematical secrets', while he is here.

Information for participating schools is hosted here.