Top maths pupils achieve gold in national competition

Priory’s Year 10 Daniel won a Gold certificate at the UKMT Intermediate Challenge and has been invited to the National Mathematics Summer School in Leeds.

The UK Maths Trust Intermediate Challenge is for high-achieving pupils in Year 9, 10 and 11.

“It’s for our top achievers and it’s an hour-long challenge, with multiple choice questions focused on problem solving,” said Maths teacher Mr Hunter. “It’s a national competition so they are competing against pupils from all over the UK.”

Year 10 Daniel was the ‘Best in School’ and achieved 96 points out of 135 on offer and, after excelling over a number of years with the UKMT challenges, received an invitation to attend the prestigious maths summer school.

“It does look good,” said Daniel. 

“It’s the first time I have been Best in School at Intermediate level. I am pleased with my score although it is frustrating as, looking back, I knew straight away one question where I made a mistake and lost points.”

Year 11 Josef was the ‘Best in Year’ and achieved 88 out of the 135 points.

Josef said: “It was very hard, I want to do Maths at A-Level and do something with science and maths in the future.”

Lily also achieved Gold with 87 marks and said: “I was pleased to achieve Gold as I didn’t expect it. Some of it was very tough. I want to do Maths at A-Level as well.”

Year 11 Sam also celebrated Gold while Alfie achieved Silver and was Best in Year 9. He said: “It was really tricky so I was surprised I did so well.”