The Owl 2020

The Owl 2020
School Societies
We started the day by walking down to
St.Malachy’s where we were greeted
with tea, coffee, biscuits and a sheet of
warm-up questions. The mathematics
began with the group round followed by
the crossnumber, shuttle round and then
relay round.
After a rocky start, we improved
steadily and were delighted to finish by
placing 4 th in Northern Ireland. Joshua’s
experience, from the previous years,
would prove to be invaluable during the
competition. He was the Captain and his
familiarity with the format of the
competition enabled him to guide us on
the day and ease some pre-existing
nerves from the newer competitors.
Joshua also made the final decisions
with regards to our final answers
submitted to the referee.
The experience was thoroughly
enjoyable and made us feel even more
prepared for the next competition at
Queen’s. For this event we had a change
in personnel as Zak Thabeth replaced
Sam for this competition. Zak had
already been part of the Senior Maths
Team from the previous year and added
invaluable experience and insight for
the QUB competition.
results were announced and we always
managed to place in the top three.
Unfortunately, our consistent, highquality
performance did not carry over
to the final round.
In the final round, we had to watch a
short five-minute video about
theoretical physics, after which we were
asked questions. Some were on
observation of details rather than the
content (such as ‘What time was read on
the clock in the shop?’) and as our eye
for detail was not on par with our
mathematical ability, we dropped down
to 4 th overall, which was a
disappointing finish after such a
promising start.
Both competitions were challenging but
very rewarding experiences and we
were proud to represent our school at
events in which we have a long tradition
of success.
On the 6 th of March, we went to the
Regional Final of the UKMT Team
Challenge held at St Malachy’s
College. Four of us attended and we
were accompanied by Dr Springer. The
competition lasted most of the school
day and consisted of four rounds.
The first round was a maths problem
round, in which we were given fifteen
questions and half an hour in which to
solve them. This was good to start with,
as the time allowance was quite lenient
and allowed for us to confirm all our
answers by checking.
We then did the crossnumber (a
crossword puzzle with numbers instead
of letters). For this, we were split into
two sub teams, where one team would
attempt the ‘down’ problems and the
other the ‘across’. This round went
well, although we did lose a few points
to small mistakes.
question. We did a few of these, and for
each one we only had five minutes.
These were definitely the most
challenging part of the competition.
Finally, we did a speed number round.
We went into our separate teams and
had to solve a question and run up the
hall to a teacher, who would give us the
next question to hand to the other team
if it was right. This round was quite
hectic as all the running made it feel fast
paced.
In the end, we came second in the
competition, losing to Friends School
by one point. It was really good fun and
was made better by the practices
organised beforehand by Dr Springer;
they were enjoyable and helped us to
prepare for the competition. We were
all disappointed to lose by one point,
but everyone enjoyed the day and had a
good time.
Oliver Pearce (FIII)
INTO FILM CLUB
On Thursday 21st November, 18 pupils
from the B.R.A Into Film Club attended
the annual Into Film Festival. The
festival is the world's largest youth film
festival. It is an annual, three-week
programme of over 2700 free cinema
screenings, activities and
workshops for 5-19 year-olds held in
venues across the United Kingdom.
With the help of Dr Springer, the four
of us prepared for Queen’s very
diligently by working on tough
questions from previous events or ones
that were similar. On the day, we started
off well. At the end of each round, the
John Gibson (LVI) and Jude
Moorehead (LVI)
JUNIOR TEAMS
The third round had us split into two
smaller teams again. This time each
team was given two questions;
however, in order to solve each subteam’s
question, we had to get the
answer to the other sub-team’s
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