November Newsletter – 2014

Dear Fellow Smart Solvers,

The end is near! Don’t worry, I mean the end of the year, of marking and of another group of matric students. Congratulations! You survived another year and you can finally put your feet up and relax a little bit (although I’m sure there will still be maths prep going on in secret :)). We want to wish everyone a wonderful summer holiday and Festive season.

See even Christmas has maths in it 🙂

Congratulations to Mr B. Hoosen from Kamalinee Primary school in Durban for winning the Seartec Teacher of the Year award through the Hectic Nine-9 T.V. show. And, congratulations to Mr K. Reddy from Carter High School in Pietermaritzburg, for winning the Maths Teacher of the Year award. Both of these super-awesome teachers receive our SHARP R-990N convection/ grill microwave (the same one that won the Fairlady Best Buy 2014 Award in the microwaves category). Students who nominated their teachers also received prizes in the form of a Blackberry Torch 9810 as well as airtime and SHARP EL-W535HT scientific calculators.

On the 24^th of October Roedean School held their Primary School Maths Conference. The turn-out was amazing with over 200 teachers from around the country attending the conference. Seartec, proud distributor of SHARP, sponsored the lanyards and name tags, and also loaned our Interactive Whiteboard to the school, so that they could stream a live twitter feed for the entire conference.

On the 4^th and 5^th of November, I was lucky enough to travel up to the town of Welkom, where I got to meet many of the dedicated maths teachers in the area. I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and I hope the teachers who were a part of the workshops also had fun. In the picture below are some of the teachers who attended the workshop on the Wednesday afternoon.

On the 14^th of November Seartec attended the Umlazi AMESA, where we did three calculator workshops for teachers across various school levels. Below are pictures of the teachers attending the workshop, and two of the great Umlazi AMESA committee members who helped out at the beginning of the workshop.

Pareto, the developers and owners of shopping malls like Sandton City, Menlyn Park, The Pavillion, Westgate and many others, have started a corporate social responsibility program in their malls called NuMiracle Maths Labs. Pareto started the first Math Lab in The Pavillion with 36 grade 8 students in July of this year. The NuMiracle Math Lab in Westgate also opened in October 2014. 36 students from 2 or 3 disadvantaged schools were selected through an intense process including tests and interviews. Students that are selected will be given, for the rest of their school career, 4 hours of extra maths every week. Students will attend the sessions in the mall. The program is run through Master Maths. Sharp will sponsor the 36 students in each centre with their very own EL-W535HT scientific calculator as many of these students do not own their own calculators. The NuMiracle Maths labs are also looking for full time tutors to start in January of 2015 for the centers in The Pavillion, Westgate and Southgate. They are looking for students who are currently completing a B.Sc or who already have their B.Sc and a mark of 80% or more for mathematics in matric. For more information please email me back and I will send you the full description. If you are interested in applying for the position please send your CV to Freda Deyzal via email freda@mseed.co.za or contact her at 021 880 1366.

Seartec has a publication of their own called Team Talk written by Seartec director Bob Skinstad. In this edition there is an article on the Progressive Principals association in Cape Town, run by a gentleman called Clive Arries. Clive also walked away with the principal of the year award for 2014. Congratulations Clive!

Proverto has a Geometry study guide available for sale, written by a passionate maths teacher who understood what students needed. The study guide is available for R100 from Proverto.

If you are looking for something to do with your own children this Christmas check out Activity Village which has a daily Christmas advent calendar for every day leading up to Christmas. Apparently, the whole thing fits together and is quite spectacular once it is finished. The calendar is free, the only catch is that you need to download the new activity every day. Alternatively, if you can’t wait, you can purchase it on their shop from the second week in December. The advent calendar will start on the 1^st of December 🙂

If you are a lover of random facts like I am, then you will love this article about the top 10 numbers for random facts written by Adam Frost. I thoroughly enjoyed reading the article and it’s a great way to introduce the concept of numbers with students in the beginning of the year.

If you are travelling for your summer holidays please drive safely and keep the children (or adults) entertained with these great maths games that you can play in the car. But shhhh!! Don’t tell your kids that they are actually practicing their maths skills 🙂

If your school is looking to replace their copier before the end of the year Seartec, proud distributor of Sharp, is offering a great bundle deal which includes a copier, a tablet and free copies, on fantastic rental prices. Follow the link to view or print this special deal for your school!

Last month’s riddle was: How do you make 7 even? Lots of our readers got the answer to this one – simply take away the “s”

Seven – s = even 🙂 If you have a great riddle that you would like to share with your fellow Smart Solvers then send it through to me and it could feature in the next newsletter.

Here is November’s riddle:

Divide the clock’s face into three equal parts exactly with two lines. Therefore the sum of the numbers in the three equal parts should be same.

Have a wonderful long break and we hope you come back refreshed and excited for next year,

Tal and the Sharp Team