DMIS Wins Gold Medal in Math Competition

The French 4th graders recently won the gold medal in Rallye Math, a math competition offered by the Inspecteur de l’education Nationale and the Conseiller Pédagogique based in Washington, D.C. for all French schools in North America. As a gold medal winner, the DMIS 4th graders are ranked in the top 20 out of 133 French schools throughout North America!

The 4th grade class competed against 133 other French schools in the U.S. and Canada, and because 4th and 5th grade were competing at the same level, the DMIS 4th grade did complete against some 5th graders.  

The Rallye Math competition consists of two parts.  Each time, the class was presented with 16 math problems to solve — including logic, geometry and classic arithmetic. As a group, they had to pick 8 of the problems, knowing that for every question they answer incorrectly they would lose points. The harder the question, the more points they earned. The students started with 20o points “in the bank,” and then continued adding and subracting points as they went through the problems. They were able to choose two bonus ”wild cards” that would double their points if answered correctly.  

The interesting piece about this competition is that the class worked autonomously as a group — without the teacher’s guidance or help. The students had to organize themselves after solving all the problems, decide which 8 problems they were the most confident about and where to place the bonus “wild cards.” They had one hour to complete each test. The 4th graders took two tests — one in January and one in March.  The competition results were their scores — so they scored among the top 20 out of 133 competing schools! 

Amelie Yellen, the 4th grade French teacher, prepared the students for this competition using former competition tests and other trainings/workshops provided by the competition’s website. The class learned to work together under the excellent leadership provided by Amelie. 

Congratulations, 4th graders!