UKMT Team Maths Challenge 2026
We were delighted to take a team of students to Pate's School to compete in the annual Team Maths Challenge. The team finished in a commendable 7th place overall and one of our Year 8 students has written the following summary of events.
“I have enough money to buy either six swizzles and 5 fizzles, or else nine swizzles and one fizzle, with no change left. If instead I buy only fizzles, how many can I buy?”- Example question (Used as a practice question).
17 schools participated in the event which included a mix of state, grammar and private schools from Cheltenham and the surrounding area. A team of 4 students from HSL were selected to compete and participated in practice sessions to build the skills necessary to complete this challenge. These students were Daniel C and Tessie S from Year 8 and Millie D and Chanuga P from Year 9.
The day commenced with the Group round this round involved the whole team working together and combining wit to answer a series of questions each progressively harder than the last. In this round our combined total of 49/60 led us to become the third highest scoring school in the competition. Only beaten by Pate’s and Dean Close. Following this, we completed the cross-number, which is exactly as it sounds however, we were split into 2 teams of 2 and no direct communication was permitted between teams. One team had the across clue and the other had the downs each team relied on each other to gain the necessary clues as many clues formulated part of the answer of another clue. We finished with an impressive score of 57/62.
The next round was the shuttle round, where the answer to the first question was used to form the answer to the next question. This round was tricky, as if one mistake was made it meant many mistakes were made. We then finished off with our favourite round, the relay round, where we were able to run around and answer maths problems.
Overall, we came 8th out of the 17 schools, which is an impressive result! We had an enjoyable and enriching day out and cannot wait for the competition next year.
Daniel C
