Buff Bay Primary tops 30 Portland schools in math competition

Buff Bay Primary School has emerged as the winner of the 2026 Portland Maths Quiz Competition, topping a field of 30 schools.

The competition, which opened on February 6, recorded its highest number of entries since its inception in 2017 in the Port Antonio area.

The four challengers from Buff Bay faced off against Norwich Primary School in a neck-and-neck battle, separated by just a few points in the end. The final, as well as the third-place play-off, took place at the Social Development Commission’s Portland office on May 7. 

It is Buff Bay Primary’s first time winning the competition. The champion quizzers, the second- and third-placed teams, their coaches, and other outstanding challengers were all fêted with an array of trophies and exciting prizes from sponsors. 

Buff Bay Primary’s coach, Jody-Ann Thomas, said it took “hard work and dedication” to claim the win.

Thomas said that the experience was not just a competitive one, but that  the contest also provided several other benefits to the young participants.

“It also improved how they collaborate with each other, and all of that. So, it's not only just about writing down the answer. As the judges would have said, it is about thinking critically and with reasoning,” she explained.

Cluster-based mathematics specialist for Region 2, President of the Norwich Community Development Committee and an organiser of the competition, Suzette Simpson McNeil, conveyed congratulations to the winning team.

“We are really happy for them [and] for all the teams that made it this far. It has been a long couple of weeks, [and] it's really a wonderful blessing to be here,” Simpson McNeil said,

She added: “We thought that when we saw the numbers for mathematics for the region, we thought we should not just stick to Port Antonio, but just to enlarge it to the other communities in Portland.”

The 30 primary-level institutions that took on the challenge hail from both eastern and western Portland. For next year, the organisers are looking to extend the competition to include high schools. 

Simpson McNeil also informed that the quiz revealed areas in which students were having challenges with mathematics, and certain misconceptions. 

“And what the teachers, and what we have identified to them is that they were not familiar with doing many reasoning tasks, and so we want to fix that. We're going to continue this progression because coming out of the match, we met with the teachers in west Portland and they decided that they want to form a little group and to do some item writing, which is a plus,” the math specialist said.

“The work continues, because we're going to be going into the schools, school by school, looking at the weaknesses. We want to meet with the teachers, let them know where their school is at and what intervention they can do in school, and what we can do from this summer to going into the new school year, because we want to fix it,” she added.