Mathematicians take five!
Intermediate Maths Olympiad
The Intermediate Maths Olympiad is split into three age-related tiers: Cayley (Year 9), Hamilton (Year 10) and Maclaurin (Year 11). Students who achieved a Gold certificate in the Intermediate Maths Challenge, held in January, were eligible for selection, with the top 500 students nationally in each year group invited to compete in the Olympiads in March. Each Olympiad consists of a challenging two-hour paper requiring full written solutions.
We are delighted to announce that five Wilson's students achieved medals and book prizes across the three Olympiads.
In the Maclaurin Olympiad, Jamie H earned a Silver medal.
In the Hamilton Olympiad, Anthony earned a Gold medal, while Dexter received a Bronze medal.
In the Cayley Olympiad, Keynes and Theo (Year 8) each won a Bronze medal.
An outstanding aspect of these achievements is just how selective the awards are. Across the country, only the top 20 students receive Gold medals, the next 30 receive Silver medals and the following 50 receive Bronze medals. Congratulations to all of our medal winners on these exceptional performances.
Junior Maths Olympiad
At the end of April, all of our Year 7 and Year 8 students took part in the Junior Maths Challenge. A record 174 students qualified for the Kangaroo, having achieved a Gold certificate in the challenge. From these, 30 students qualified for the Junior Maths Olympiad (JMO), another demanding two-hour paper requiring full written solutions.
The results have just been released, and we are delighted to report that our students have surpassed last year's medal haul.
Theo achieved a Gold medal—one of only 40 awarded nationally—matching his Gold medal from last year. George T (Year 8) earned a Silver medal, while Youhan and Aone (both Year 7) each received Bronze medals.
The students will receive their medals and book prizes in September.
Southampton Maths Challenge
During the spring term, students worked hard preparing their entries for the University of Southampton Maths Challenge. We submitted around 70 entries across the Junior and Senior competitions.
We were informed of the prize winners in May, and a number of students attended the prize-giving ceremony at the University in June. We expect to receive the certificates and prizes shortly, although they may not be presented to students until September.
UKMT Team Maths Challenge 2026
Wilson's once again hosted one of the regional heats of the UKMT Team Maths Challenge, and we are delighted that our team—Wojtek and Keynes (Year 9), together with Theo and Leo (Year 8)—won the competition to qualify for the National Final, held this year in Manchester.
During the train journey to Manchester, the team put the finishing touches to their poster for the Poster Round, which this year was based on the fascinating theme of Japanese Temple Geometry.
At the National Final, the team competed in the Group Round, Crossnumber, Shuttle and Relay rounds, producing an excellent performance to finish 6th overall from more than 50 of the country's top teams. Their poster also received a Highly Commended award, placing among the top 16 nationally.
Our thanks go to Mr Burrows for all of his hard work in organising and supporting the team throughout the competition.
Hans Woyda Report 2025/26
Wilson's has entered a team into the Hans Woyda Mathematics Competition for many years. Now in its 46th year, the competition originally involved only schools within Sutton but has since expanded to include 64 schools from across London. Each team consists of one student from Years 9, 11, 12 and 13, and once again we fielded a strong squad.
In the opening round-robin stage, our first match was against Epsom College. Although the scores remained level for much of the contest, we pulled away in the Speed Round to secure an impressive 52–41 victory. The team comprised Richie, Thajan, Egemen and Vedant.
Our second match produced an even more convincing result, with a 55–22 win over Sutton High. On this occasion, the team consisted of Keynes, Aadish, Theo and Vedant.
Our final group match was against Nonsuch and proved to be another closely contested affair. Neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage, and the match ended in a 43–43 draw. The team for this fixture was Keynes, Jamie H, Theo and Adhrit S.
Once all the group results had been totalled, Wilson's emerged as the outright group winners and qualified for the knockout stage. Following the draw, we discovered that we would travel to Sutton Grammar School, whom we had defeated in last year's semi-final.
Representing Wilson's were Richie, Aadish, Houting and Harry, who produced another excellent performance in a hard-fought contest. Unfortunately, it was not to be this time, as Sutton Grammar edged the match 44–39.
Quotes from our Mathematicians
Theo said:
Taking part in Hans Woyda was a great experience, with some very enjoyable (and odd) maths problems. Some of my favourite moments came in the team rounds when we managed to edge the opponent team by one point. Doing maths under very rapid firetime pressure was nerve-wracking but ultimately very rewarding!
I would like to give a massive thank you to Mrs Rata, without whom this opportunity would not be possible.
Aadish said:
Thank you so much for organising the competition, we all found it really fun and were very passionate about it, and the maths in the matches was inspiring and exciting too.
So thanks for making it possible, it was something I looked forward to every time you sent an email. We'll come back stronger and prepared for next year!
Mrs Rata praised all participants:
“I would like to congratulate everyone who took part in these matches. The time pressure involved in many questions is intense so well done!
It is lovely to realise how keen our students are to take part in these special competitions and we are really proud of all of their successes.”
