Alex becomes a Maths Olympiad Bronze Medallist!

Alex (J4) recently took part in the Cayley Mathematical Olympiad, a follow-on round to the Intermediate Mathematical Challenge (a challenge which is designed for pupils in year 11 and below). 

Alex sat a 2-hour written paper consisting of six problems requiring full written solutions. Only around 600 qualifying students from the Intermediate Mathematical Challenge are invited to take part in this Olympiad. Students who have missed the qualifying score threshold for the Challenge, which varies from year to year, may be entered into the Challenge at the discretion of their school. Alex really relished the opportunity to tackle some quite tricky maths problems and once he'd finished the paper, he agreed it had been both challenging and enjoyable. This week the results we released, and we are delighted with the incredible result Alex achieved. He scored so highly he was awarded not only a distinction and a bronze medal but will also receive a book prize. In four out of the 6 questions, Alex scored extremely highly with two of his solutions gaining full marks. He narrowly missed out on a silver medal scoring only one point less than the threshold required but sailed into the distinction awards, beating the threshold here by 10 whole points. Only the top 100 scorers receive medals so this is a fantastic achievement.

Alex's achievements reflect both his passion and commitment to the field of maths but also the hard work he put into preparing for the challenge with the support of his maths teacher Miss Kendall. Mr Spencer said ‘This is quite simply an outstanding result. The competition is aimed at much older students, so the significance of Alex's achievement cannot be overstated; I look forward to watching what promises to be his exciting progress as he continues through St Peter's.’

This week also saw all our J5 pupils and a selection of J4s take part in the Junior Maths Challenge which is a similar national competition also run by UKMT but this time aimed at students in year 8 and below. We can't wait to see how the pupils have done and what awards they might achieve next!