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Thirty-six QE sixth-formers qualified for the next stages of a national Mathematics competition – twice as many as in 2016 – while the School comfortably out-performed the national average.

Eleven pupils taking part in the Senior Mathematical Challenge qualified for the élite British Mathematical Olympiad – up from eight last year – and 25 reached the other follow-on round, the Senior Kangaroo, representing a 150% increase on 2016’s total of ten.

The Best-in-School title went to Year 12 boy Robert Sarkar (right in photograph), who scored 121 out of a possible 125 marks. Andrew Shamis (left in photograph), top scorer in Year 13, was just behind, on 120.

Of the 123 pupils who entered the competition, 33 were awarded gold certificates (22 in 2016), 53 received silver (39) and 30 (42) won bronze. The certificates are given only to the top 60% of entrants nationally, but at QE the proportion gaining them was 94%. They are awarded gold, silver and bronze in the ratio of 1:2 :3.

Congratulating the successful entrants, Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “Many of the boys who have qualified through to the follow-on rounds have been members of our Élite Maths mentoring scheme for a number of years and are now passing on their experience and wisdom through mentoring students in Years 9 to 11.”

The competition, run by the UK Mathematics Trust, involves answering 25 multiple-choice questions in 90 minutes. To qualify for the Olympiad, candidates must score at least 104 points and for the Kangaroo, they must score at least 85.

Sixty-two boys from Year 11 headed off to the West End to hear from some of the country’s most engaging Mathematics speakers – including one who hit the headlines with her investigation into Ryanair’s seat allocation policy.

The Maths Inspiration Show at the Piccadilly Theatre featured interactive lectures on a wide range of mathematical topics. It was hosted by Matt Parker, who has the unique distinction of holding the prestigious title of London Mathematical Society Popular Lecturer and of having a sold-out comedy show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

Afterwards, the boys were full of praise for the event. Viraj Mehta said: “I found the lectures intellectually stimulating whilst still being humorous and interactive. I especially enjoyed the variety of topics of maths and how they link to everyday life.” For his part, Joshua Han said the show was “much more interesting and entertaining than I expected.”

Among the speakers were Jennifer Rogers, who gained a PhD at Warwick and is now a research fellow in the Department of Statistics at the University of Oxford. She was widely quoted this summer when she worked with the BBC’s Watchdog programme on investigating Ryanair’s claims that it allocated seats to people who had not paid to reserve seat on an entirely random basis. All the people in her sample were allocated the dreaded middle seats – and the chances of that happening were smaller than the chance of winning the National Lottery jackpot, she found. In her lecture, she explained how she had made the calculations using simple probability and asked the audience to consider whether this meant Ryanair’s claim to random allocation was invalid.

Mathematician and juggler Colin Wright received his maths doctorate in 1990 from Cambridge University. He looked at the importance of spotting patterns – showing that juggling tricks are, in fact, patterns with mathematical properties – but warned that patterns are not always as predictable as they seem.

Comedian and science communicator Steve Mould showed the audience his favourite shape, the Reuleaux triangle – a shape formed from the intersection of three discs. He also gave his name to the Mould Effect: his clip of a 50-meter string of metal balls briefly and mysteriously flowing upwards before plunging to the ground caused a Youtube sensation in 2013.

Three sixth-formers have won places in the second round of the élite British Mathematical Olympiad.

They were among a total of 11 QE boys from Years 12 and 13 who had qualified to sit the first round of the Olympiad, which is one of the follow-on rounds of the UK Mathematics Trust’s Senior Maths Challenge. This compares with eight boys reaching round 1 of the Olympiad last year and three in 2015.

The round 2 qualifiers – Aneesh Chopada, of Year 13; Niam Vaishnav, of Year 12, and Kiran Aberdeen, of Year 12 – were all awarded certificates of distinction and bronze medals, having scored 49 marks out of a possible 60, 48/60 and 47/60 respectively.

Kiran said: “I really enjoyed the question about triangle numbers as it made me think ‘outside the box’,” while Niam added: “I enjoy the challenge of these problem-solving questions because they’re different from what we learn in class.”

Yuri Evdokimov, of Year 13, and Nico Puthu Parackat Biosca, of Year 12, also received certificates of distinction, scoring 37/60 each. The remaining six pupils all received a certificate of qualification.

A further 25 sixth-formers took part in the Senior Maths Challenge’s other follow-on round, the Senior Kangaroo (up from ten in 2016). The high scorers were: Karnan Sembian, of Year 13, (50 marks out of a possible 100); Aschwin Jegatheeswaran, of Year 13, (45); Ibrahim Al-Hariri, of Year 12, (40); Akshat Sharma, of Year 12, (40), and Oliver Robinson, of Year 13 (40). They were each awarded a merit certificate for achieving scores of 40 or more, placing them in the top 25% nationally. The remaining 20 boys received certificates of qualification.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “Warmest congratulations to all our students and best wishes to Aneesh, Kiran and Niam for the next round.”

Round 1 of the Olympiad consisted of six long, extended questions to be completed in three-and-a-half hours.  Round 2, due to take place on Thursday 25th January, will involve four long, extended questions to be completed within the same timeframe. Success in this round will result in an invitation to participate in training for the International Mathematical Olympiad.

The Senior Kangaroo is a one-hour paper. All the questions require three-digit answers (using leading zeros where necessary) entered on to a machine-readable sheet similar to those used for the Senior Challenge. It is the first competition of its kind to be organised by the UKMT – that is, a challenge that is marked by machine but is not multiple-choice.

A team of QE boys has achieved the School’s best-ever result in the national final of the Senior Team Maths Challenge.

The four boys from Year 12 scored 197 points out of a possible 230 and were placed seventh out of 86 teams. Kiran Aberdeen, Bashmy Basheer, Aadi Desai and Niam Vaishnav were invited to the national final after achieving one of the highest second-place scores in the regional rounds in November 2017.

The final of the UK Mathematics Trust competition, which was held at the Royal Horticultural Halls in St James’s Park, London, was won by Ruthin School, an independent school in Denbighshire, who scored 223.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said “The boys performed very creditably against a very high-quality field of opponents.”

The challenge comprises four rounds, which test a wide range of mathematical skills. In the Group round, each team had 40 minutes in which to solve ten questions; they had to decide whether to work individually, in pairs or as a group. The Crossnumber round – crossnumbers are similar to a crossword but with numerical answers – the teams worked in pairs, with one pair taking the across clues and the other the down clues. The exercise required logic and deduction.

In the Shuttle round, the teams had to compete against the clock to answer a series of four questions, with questions 2, 3 and 4 all dependent on the answer from the previous question. In the final relay round, the teams were required to split into pairs, taking it in turns to solve problems – the round involved movement as well as Mathematics.

Kiran, the team captain, said: “It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. My favourite problem was about the number of possible routes between two vertices.”

QE pupils achieved another record-breaking performance in this year’s UK Intermediate Maths Challenge – with every boy entered winning a certificate.

A total of 310 boys from Years 9 to 11 took park in the competition. Of these, 175, were awarded gold certificates (up from 143 in 2017 and 124 in 2016). A further 100 were awarded silver and the remaining 35 received bronze awards. Nationally, it is the top 40% of competitors who receive certificates: gold, silver and bronze are awarded in the ratio 1:2:3.

Twenty-seven boys (19 last year) have qualified for the Intermediate Olympiad and a further 140 (133 in 2017) for the other follow-on round, the Intermediate Kangaroo. James Tan from Year 10 was awarded the Best in School with his score of 130 out of 135.

Assistant Head of Mathematics Wendy Fung said: “We are delighted with how well the boys have done and extremely pleased with the continued increase in the proportion of boys reaching the follow-on rounds. As the new GCSE has a strong focus on problem-solving, success in the Challenge will stand the boys in good stead for the new-style exams.”

Around 500 of the highest scorers in each school year nationwide are invited to take part in the Intermediate Mathematical Olympiad papers. A further 5,500 pupils are invited to sit either the grey or pink European Kangaroo papers. These are one-hour papers with 25 multiple choice questions, taken by pupils from over 30 countries worldwide.

One of the boys who has qualified for the Intermediate Olympiad is Shimaq-Ahamed Sakeel Mohamed from Year 9, who said: “I’m really pleased with my result and I am looking forward to trying the Olympiad questions.”

Four boys from Year 10 finished as runners-up after a day of fierce competition at a regional team Mathematics event.

The Maths Feast, organised by the Further Mathematics Support Programme, is based around a culinary theme. For the regional round hosted by Francis Holland School, captain Viraj Mehta and his teammates Ali Afsharmoqaddam , Edward Hu and Vincent Tang were picked to represent QE after rigorous trials and a lengthy selection process.

Mathematics teacher Michael Smith said: “After experiencing the unique thrills of the Central Line in rush hour, the boys were excited to get started and show what they could do against the competition from ten other schools.”

The first round, or Entreé, comprised true-or-false questions. “The boys had to be on their guard as some of the questions at first appeared deceptively easy, but there were many tricks.”

Next came the Amuse-Bouche round, which involved a version of the Numbers game from TV’s Countdown. Three more of these followed throughout the day, culminating in a repeat of the challenge from a vintage episode of the show from 1997, accessible on YouTube as The Most Extraordinary Numbers Game Ever. None of the Maths Feast teams repeated the original contestant’s feat of arriving at a figure of exactly 952 after first – to the astonishment of the show’s then co-host, Carol Vorderman – multiplying 318 by 75.

Then followed a comprehension round, or Main, where the contestants had to use tables of squares to find square roots. “This was a method that was completely alien to them, as they had never before attempted this without their trusty calculators,” said Mr Smith. “They took to this task admirably and ended up with full marks for this round.”

Dessert involved the contestants attempting four much more difficult questions that required full written solutions. “This tested their ability to really delve into a much more challenging problem, as well as to present their ideas in a proper mathematical way.”

Finally came the Petits-Fours, a relay round in which the teams split into pairs and raced against time before the clock ran out.

A nervous wait followed, before the boys were named in second place – “a very creditable result at the end of what had been an enthralling day out for all”, said Mr Smith.

Viraj added: “It was really interesting trying to solve problems that needed more thinking, especially the comprehension round, when we had to learn a whole new technique in just 20 minutes.”

• • Here is an example of a question, taken from the Dessert round: “Four friends want to cross a rickety bridge at night. The bridge can only hold a maximum of two people at a time. One of the friends takes eight minutes to cross the bridge, another takes five minutes, the third takes two minutes and the fourth can cross in one minute. Because they are crossing at night, they can only cross the bridge if they are holding the torch, of which there is only one. How can all four friends cross the bridge in 15 minutes?”