July 28th, 2025

Written by Brook Doersam

32 teams competed at Preston High School in a locally run team math competition that brought together schools from all across the district. Teams from both the Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) and neighbouring districts were invited to participate in this local version of the Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing (CEMC) team math competition.

Led by Laura Kingston, the head of the math department at Preston High School, the school was proud to host the fifth year of the math competition. It provides an opportunity for those not competing at the central CEMC math contest to still be provided an opportunity to compete and have fun with their peers.

Five teams from Preston High School competed against teams from Jacob Hespeler Secondary School (JHSS), Huron Heights Secondary School (HHSS), Southwood Secondary School (SSS), Glenview Park Secondary School (GPSS) and two teams from St. Mary’s High School. In addition to those teams competing in person, teams from Elmira District Secondary School (EDSS), Cameron Heights Collegiate Institute (CHCI)and Waterloo-Oxford District Secondary School (WODSS) joined the contest virtually.

Huron Heights walked away with first place followed by three teams from Cameron Heights in second, third and fourth.

For Erik, a Grade 12 HHSS student, who plans to study space engineering in university next year, the team building aspect of the competition stood out most.

Grade 9 GPSS students Evan and Sia have done other individual math contests in the past and thought it would be fun to try the team competition. They both expressed that they really enjoy the analytical, problem solving aspect of doing math. Evan felt that participating in contests allows him to learn strategies and practice problem solving skills to build on what he learns in his Grade 9 math classes.

Former PHS students, Liam, River, and Ronak came back to help run the contest for the day. Liam, who just finished his first year at McMaster University in computer science, commented that “math contests are a powerful way to teach yourself things that might not be in the curriculum but will definitely help you later”. He felt that participating in math contests really helped him to succeed in his university classes. River, an honours math student, and Ronak, who is taking software engineering, both at the University of Waterloo also reflected that participating in contests helped them to learn to tackle challenges and solve problems that they would encounter in their university classes.

Ronak reflected that he was pleased to volunteer with running the contest as he found participating as a high school student a great opportunity for personal growth and wanted to help other students have the same opportunity. Through participating in this and other contests, Liam, River and Ronak were inspired to create the Canadian Team Programming Contest in their Grade 12 year, which they were able to run again this year at the University of Waterloo, with 350 high school students participating from across Canada.

At the end of the day, Coralie, a Grade 11 student shared that she had a lot of fun and that she “100% preferred the team version” of participating in math competitions. Fellow team member Haniya, agreed that it was fun “learning with my friends, getting the right answer together, even being confused together.” The competition was a resounding success, and students are already looking forward to the next challenge.

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