CHRISTIANA, Manchester — When fifth and sixth graders Breanna Evans and Khalil Tracey — reigning ‘Miss Numbers’ and ‘Mr Geometry’ — walked away with the top prizes in the school’s Numeracy Pageant recently, they were breaking fresh ground.

According to Numeracy Coordinator at the Christiana Leased Primary and Infant School, Yanique Hall-Harriott, it has never been done before.

“I have never heard of a Numeracy Pageant before,” she told the Jamaica Observer Central.

Tasked with her current responsibility since September of last year, Hall-Harriott had to find ways to promote Mathematics in the school.

She said that it was through brainstorming that the idea for a Numeracy Pageant was conceptualised and then refined by a seven-member numeracy committee that comprised teachers at the school.

Hall-Harriott said the Numeracy Pageant involved 12 contestants, narrowed from an audition held at the school. Two students (a male and a female) represented each of the six strands in mathematics: probability, geometry, statistics, measurement, numbers and algebra.

The numeracy coordinator said that the contestants were judged for creativity and content of talent pieces, confidence during the stage presentations and they also had a question-and-answer section about their particular strand.

From the roughly four months of planning the event at the North East Manchester-based school to its execution at the nearby Sacred Heart Academy Auditorium on May 10, school officials say a new level of interest was sparked in Mathematics.

Hall-Harriott said that there are also “fun” math-related activities in the school’s Math Club which are used to enhance the teaching of the subject.

Funding from the recent Numeracy Pageant is being used to purchase prizes for a Math Tuck Shop which has been incorporated into the learning process as a means of motivating students.

Top performing students from grades one to six have a chance to win prizes such as electronic tablets, Play Station and Blackberry smart phones.

To further expose them to Mathematics, a group of students were taken to a related exposition at the University of the West Indies, Mona during Education Week in May, Hall-Harriott said.

To her, the pageant was a beneficial way of enhancing students’ performance in Mathematics and she would like to see it expand beyond her school.

Principal of the Christiana Leased Primary and Infant School Christopher Tyme told Observer Central that “from day one” he knew that the Numeracy Pageant could work.

“We are known as an innovative school,” he said.

He said that the competition has now generated a lot of interest from other schools and among people from the Ministry of Education (MOE) in Region Five.

Parents and teachers from other schools, as well as MOE staff who missed the event, have expressed regret, Tyme said.

Principal for the past four years, he also spoke of strides in another critical area — literacy.

At Tyme’s office there are copies of books said to be written by students and printed in time for Education Week.

He said he is waiting to get more copies so that they can be used as teaching aids in the school, and hopes that in future they will be available on a wider scale.

The principal said he was encouraged by results of both the Grade Four numeracy and literacy tests.

Tyme said the school also has plans to increase space in the infant school as part of an overall upgrading programme.

The former Dean of Discipline says in addition to efforts being made to improve literacy and numeracy, focus is also placed on building the overall culture of the school.

As such, children are challenged both through classroom and extracurricular activities and rewarded openly for their efforts.

“We reward children regularly at devotion…,” Tyme said.

The school, which has among its past students Opposition Spokesman on Finance Audley Shaw and athlete Sherone Simpson, is affiliated to the Anglican Church from which the land is leased.