GIFTED students are celebrating their best-ever performance in the annual UK Junior Maths Challenge.

Harrow Way Community School achieved two Golds, 10 Silver and 14 Bronze awards in the national competition organised by the UK Mathematics Trust.

There was also a rare result for Year 8 pupil Shaun Scratchley who qualified for the challenging Junior Kangaroo event which only 2.6 per cent of the 300,000 entrants are invited to participate in.

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 per cent of students achieving grades 9-4 (previously A*-C) in last year’s GCSE exams.”

The national 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, with penalties for incorrect answers to discourage any guessing, to be answered within one hour.