Harrow Way Community School are 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 two Golds, ten Silver and 14 Bronze awards, with Year 8 Shaun Scratchley also qualifying for the Junior Kangaroo which only 2.6% of the 300,000 entries are invited to participate in.
Commenting on the result Christina Marsh, Assistant Curriculum Leader for Mathematics said: “We are really pleased with this year’s performance, particularly the number of Gold and Silver awards. This is the first time one of our students has progressed to the Junior Kangaroo which is outstanding as only 8,000 from the initial 300,000 qualify. Maths is a particular strength here at Harrow Way with 71% of students achieving grades 9-4 (previously A*-C) in last year’s GCSE exams
The Junior Challenge is the UK’s most popular mathematics competition with over 300 000 students taking part each year. It is aimed at students in Year 7 and 8 from across the UK with only the top-scoring 40% of participants awarded bronze, silver and gold certificates in the ratio 3:2:1.
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.