The UKMT challenges
The UK Mathematics Trust runs the Junior, Intermediate and Senior Maths Challenges, which students sit at school. They’re multiple-choice papers that reward clear thinking more than memorised methods.
Top scorers are invited to follow-on rounds: the Kangaroo papers and, for the very highest scorers, the Olympiads, where solutions are written out in full.
How lessons work
Challenge questions are puzzles more than exercises, so lessons work through past papers and build the problem-solving habits behind them: drawing a diagram, trying small cases, working backwards, spotting patterns and symmetry, and ruling out impossible answers. For the Olympiad rounds, lessons also cover how to write a clear, complete solution.
Noah’s UKMT results
- Senior Maths Challenge 2023: Silver
- Senior Maths Challenge 2024: Gold
- Senior Kangaroo 2024: Merit, the highest award
The Senior Kangaroo is the invitation-only follow-on round for the top scorers in the Senior Maths Challenge.
Who it’s for
- Students who find school maths too easy and want a challenge
- Students hoping to move up to a Gold, or to qualify for a Kangaroo or Olympiad round
- Students thinking about competitive maths degrees, where problem solving matters
- Students who simply enjoy puzzles
Your tutor
Noah got a Gold in the Senior Maths Challenge and a Merit in the Senior Kangaroo, was invited to interview for Mathematics at Cambridge, and got A*s in A-Level Maths and Further Maths in 2025. Read Noah’s full profile and results.