Last month ten St. Clare's students sharpened their pencils, flexed their brains and voluntarily sat down to take an hour and a half exam in maths. However this was no ordinary end of term exam but the UKMT (United Kingdom Mathematics Trust) Senior Maths Challenge.

The UKMT Maths Challenges are lively, intriguing papers which are designed to stimulate greater interest in mathematics and test reasoning and mental agility. They consist of 25 multiple choice questions to be answered in an hour and a half. Last year over 580,000 pupils from 4,000 schools took part in the Challenges. Gold, Silver and Bronze certificates are awarded to 40% of participants and the most successful are invited to enter the British Mathematics Olympiad.

At St. Clare's we were pleased to announce that out of the ten participants, Zui Tao and Ling Tao not only received Gold certificates (an achievement in itself) they also scored high enough to be invited to the next round, the British Mathematics Olympiad. Dong Huang and Xue Jiang also received Gold certificates followed closely by Stefanos Metaxas, In Yeol Sohn and Pavlov Tsvetoslav who received the Silver Certificate. Alba Ramaj, Dovydas Stulpinas and Dmitry Makushin also took part.

This week Zui Tao and Ling Tao sat round one of the British Mathematics Olympiad. This involved answering six complex and involved mathematical problems for which full written solutions were required in three and a half hours. If successful (at the time of writing we are still awaiting the results) they will invited to try Round Two which is used to select the UK team for the annual International Mathematical Olympiad.

We are also looking forward to entering some Pre-IB students for the Intermediate Challenge in February.