Member for Western Victoria, Gayle Tierney MP is urging Western Victoria students and their families to take part in the first Victorian Maths Challenge.
The Andrews Labor Government launched the inaugural challenge for Victorian pre-school and year 5-8 students this week.
It involves activities for students and their families that link maths to real-world situations.
For pre-schoolers, parents can use different activities to introduce their children to maths in real-life settings like the super market.
For year 5-8 students, there are eight online challenges students can do at home with their families, including building and measuring towers, designing paper planes, strategy games and building floatable craft.
The activities are linked to the curriculum and designed to make maths more engaging for younger students.
Find out more about the Victorian Maths Challenge at http://vmc.global2.vic.edu.au/.
Along with the Victorian Maths Challenge, the Labor Government has also launched the new STEM in the Education State plan.
The plan outlines programs to boost science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education in Victorian schools, including:
- Training 60 teachers at 30 schools to mentor other teachers in STEM education for Years 7-8 students
- Ten new Tech Schools to deliver applied STEM education, as well as critical employment skills
- Training 200 teachers to drive significant improvements in maths and science participation and outcomes
- Enhancing young children’s cognition, numeracy, communication and creativity with the Taking Small Bytes card deck, with more than 370 ideas for play-based learning experiences using digital technologies
- 500 educators will be trained in the program which will benefit more than 14,000 pre-schoolers (aged three to five years old) and 5,500 families
For a copy of the new STEM in the Education State plan, visit www.education.vic.gov.au/vmc
Quotes attributable to Member for Western Victoria, Gayle Tierney MP
“The Victorian Maths Challenge is a great way of making maths fun and engaging for younger students and I encourage Western Victoria schools and families to get involved.”
“About 75 per cent of the fastest growing occupations will need science, technology, engineering and maths so we need to engage students early in these subjects.”