The Department continues to enjoy success in national Mathematical competitions. Every year we enter the UKMT challenges, these papers are designed to test not only mathematical skills and knowledge but also ingenuity.At the senior level, 54 pupils received certificates for creditable performance, which is our best total, 10 pupils gained Gold for being placed in the top 6% nationally, equalling the College record.

Top place in Lower Sixth was achieved by Eric Liu and top in Upper Sixth was Bhavya Jain. At the intermediate level a total of 81 pupils achieved recognition with the award of certificates. The number of Golds this year was excellent, at 24, and is our best ever. Particular credit and congratulations must go to Hendrie Ng, Danila Kurganskiy, and Ella Feng, who were placed first in their year groups with scores which put them in the top one quarter of a % nationally. Furthermore 18 of these pupils were also invited to compete in the follow up rounds in which they did very well indeed.

The College Mathematics Society, now in its 17th year, is going extremely well. The highlights of the pupil presentations were the many talks given by Bertie Parkes, in particular, his talk on Galois Theory was superb. I would like to thank Bertie for his leadership of the Society over the last year; congratulations to him on securing his place to read Mathematics at the University of Oxford. Finally, a thank you to all pupils who attended or gave presentations.

Dr Brendan Enright