Students have won gold, silver and bronze in a challenging national competition to find the best young mathematicians in the country.

The UK Maths Challenge attracted over 92,000 entries from nearly 1,900 schools and colleges around the country. Impressively two Loreto students won gold awards, six won silver and nine won bronze. Maths teacher Dr Karim was very pleased with the students’ performance and said they had found the competition stimulating and rewarding.

“Many schools and colleges believe that it is aimed at the top 25% of students and restrict entry to the competition. We believe it should be open to all students so our students are invited and encouraged to enter the challenge,” said Dr Karim.

“This year we had over fifty students who entered the challenge and seventeen were awarded certificates including two gold. This is an excellent achievement as our students, unlike in many institutions, are not coached for this competition.”

The annual competition is organised through Leeds University and tests reasoning and mental agility. This year’s paper was multiple-choice with the extra pressure that any wrong answers resulted in deducted marks.