Clare Hong is Number One!m

Congratulations go to Clare Hong who has scored in the 100th percentile in the recent Australian Mathematics Competition (AMC). She was consequently awarded the prestigious Cheryl Praeger Medal for the best female Year 11 student in Australia.

Emeritus Professor Cheryl Praeger AM FAA, is a passionate advocate for attracting more girls to mathematics and was instrumental in forming Australia’s first team to compete in the European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad. Cheryl Praeger was recently awarded the 2019 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science in recognition of her incredible contribution to mathematics research and education in Australia and around the world.

Clare has also been accepted at the National Mathematics Summer School (NMSS) to be held at ANU in Canberra next January. This is the oldest and most prestigious Summer School of its type in Australia, and in the past 51 years it has been attended by over 3000 students from around Australia. Clare will be the first ever Somerset student to attend the NMSS.

The NMSS is a 2 week residential program for the discovery and development of mathematically gifted and talented high school students. Participation is restricted to 75 students who have completed Year 11.

During the NMSS, students participate in a number of courses on different branches of mathematics not typically studied as part of the school curriculum. Each course is delivered in a series of lectures and small-group tutorials. Private study in the evening also gives students time to puzzle over problems and absorb what they have learned during the day.

The main course is Number Theory, which is studied in depth over the two weeks. Other courses which each run for one week vary from year to year and have in the past included: Chaos Theory, Cryptography, Knot Theory, Languages and Automata, Projective Geometry and Topology.

Clare is currently studying Higher Level Mathematics and Higher Level Further Mathematics as part of her IB Diploma course. Her extended essay is on the topic of Diophantine Analysis. Well Done Clare!