Harrow Way Community School is celebrating their best ever performance in the annual UK Junior Maths Challenge (UKMC), a national competition organised by the UK Mathematics Trust (UKMT). Overall the gifted Year 7 and 8 mathematicians achieved fourteen Silver and 21 Bronze awards, a record number of certificates for the School.

The Best in School award went to Faith Holman in Year 8, and Thomas Merritt was best in Year 7. Both achieved Silver awards.

Commenting on the results, a very proud Assistant Curriculum Leader Mathematics Christina Marsh said: “To be awarded 35 certificates across just two year groups is a brilliant achievement and shows we have students coming up through the school with some very strong mathematical skills. Maths is a particular strength here at Harrow Way and I am excited to see how these students progress and develop their skills and abilities further.”

The Junior Challenge is the UK’s most popular mathematics competition with over 270,000 students taking part each year. It is aimed at mathematically able students in Years 7 and 8 from across the UK with only the top-scoring 40% of participants awarded bronze (21%), silver (13%) and gold (6%) certificates.

The challenge is a lively and intriguing set of multiple choice questions which are designed to stimulate interest in maths in large numbers of students. There are 25 multiple choice questions which get progressively harder (and with penalties for incorrect answers to discourage any guessing) to be answered within one hour, sat in school under normal exam conditions.

The UKMT’s aim is to advance the education of children and young people in mathematics. They organise national mathematics competitions and other mathematical enrichment activities for 11-18 year old UK school pupils.