1. Decide Format
First of all, decide how you'd like the competition to run. This will depend on how many students you have competing. For example, if you had 12 children enter, you could have two quarter finals, each containing 6 students. The fastest 3 from each would go through to a semi final, and the top three from that go through to a grand final, like this:
With 16 competitors, you could have 8 students in each round with the fastest 4 going forward each time; or, you could have 18 students playing across 3 quarter finals, with the fastest 2 going forward each time. As you can see, it's really flexible and entirely up to you.
2. Set Up Competition Class
Once you know how many competitors you have, you need to place them in their own Pastoral Class together:
Firstly, create an empty Pastoral Class by going to Account > Classes > New Class. Give it a name (e.g. "Competition"), select the "Pastoral" class type, then click Save.
Next, go to Account > Classes > Pastoral > Ungrouped and check the names of the children that will participate in the competition.
Finally, press the 'Move to Pastoral Class' button and choose the competition class.
Note: If the children are already sorted into Pastoral Classes, you can temporarily move the competitors out of their Pastoral Classes and into the Competition Class, in the same way. Just remember to return them to their Pastoral Classes after the competition!
3. Competition Day
Ask the children competing in the first quarter final to log in to their Times Tables Rock Stars Accounts and click on the Arena mode. They will automatically land on their Maths Class' Arena page, so they must click the "Competition" button, to switch over to the "Competition" Pastoral Class' Arena Page:
Once all the children are on the "Competition" Class' Arena page, ask them all to join the same game, by clicking on the same Arena. They'll be able to see their avatars joining the game:
So the rest of the school can follow the competition and cheer their classmates on, connect a teacher computer to the projector / interactive whiteboard and click the 'Spectate Mode' button on the Arena game the pupils have joined. As they answer, the audience will be able to see how each pupil is performing on the big screen.
At the end of a game, a leaderboard will appear, enabling you to work out who to progress to the next round. Repeat the process for each round until you've crowned your school's Ultimate Rock Hero!
Hints and tips:
If the countdown clocks on the students' Arena pages aren't in sync, ask the children to refresh the page, by pressing the F5 button on their keyboards, before joining a game.
After the competition, you can delete the Pastoral class and the children will return to "Ungrouped Users". Their Maths classes will not be affected.
If you want to run the competition with younger children, you can set specific tables for them to be asked, by setting a schedule for the Pastoral class
Make sure you have an awesome, rock-hero-worthy prize for the winner!