Junior maths challenge 2025

Count yourselves lucky…in 2022’s JMO we didn’t get the results until mid September!
UKMT are on fire at the moment & their turnaround time has shortened for every Olympiad sat since. Cayley, Hamilton & MacLaurin (Intermediate year-specific Olympiads for Y9, 10 & 11) were sat 29th March with results out on 9th April so just under 3 weeks. Marking them is a completely different beast to marking the Kangaroos.
Not long now & good luck to all of your clever kids…UKMT has got to be one of the best of the best enrichment organisations out there ❤️

I'm not sure when the JMO is to be marked. In 2023 the exam was Thursday 15th and results were very quick on Tuesday the 27th, just 12 days later. This year the exam was on the 10th.

I've read the marking by volunteers is at a weekend but can't find out if its this wkend or the one after. On X UKMT posted they'll be marked at the end of the month which probably indicates 28th/ 29th rather than 21st/ 22nd.

So looks like it might be a circa 3 week wait.

Seems UKMT thinks they've sent out all results. Totally agree most teachers very busy!
Hope everyone gets results soon.

UKMT newsletter:
"Our cycle of competitions in schools has drawn to a close for another year. Various developments are coming soon, perhaps the most radical of which is the introduction of the Primary Kangaroo competition, our first competition outside the secondary sector. We ran a pilot version this year, and will start the process of turning it into a national competition in Spring 2026. Internationally, this is often referred to as the Écolier Kangourou and is the largest of the contests organised by the Association Kangourou sans Frontières. As with all our mass entry competitions, we aim for the highest standards while keeping the entry price “cheap as chips”. One innovation is that the exam paper will be brightly coloured to attract the very young children involved"

Thank you - you too 🙂

Good luck to yours then @RJ2025 hopefully not long to wait now!

We are still waiting too

Still zilch here! Are we the only ones still waiting?

That’s brilliant, congratulations to your DS

That’s fantastic!

Incredible news @Statistico!!

Just refreshed my email but we had nothing!

Yep school emailed late in day.
DS got 118, Gold Kangaroo certificate. Great work!

Hopefully soon!

Nothing here. State school though and the maths challenge isnt a huge priority, staff are really stretched and it might take them time to pass out results even if they have them.

Did anyone’s results arrive yet?

Same for my DD - she managed to finish the paper so I’m hoping that’s a good sign

DS hasn't had his yet. He came out pretty confident and remained confident after looking at the answers... He thinks he might have got gold but I think it might be close

Has anyone’s DC had their kangaroo scores yet?

Wow so for gold or silver Kangeroo you can only really get a few wrong! I’m not sure how rewarding getting these different award levels will be for kids getting marks this high over and above just getting those mark which is impressive enough in itself. And doesn’t ‘bronze’ just sound a bit anticlimactic for kids who’ve done well enough to get that far?

Interesting to see how high approx 1/3 of those taking Kangeroo have scored.

I am keeping my fingers crossed for ds but the gold and silver marks sound pretty high so not sure he will get those. Likely to be bronze or just qualification certificate.

101 30% and 103 25% look about bang on to me. Silver 113 indicates a raw average of 1.666% per mark across a 12 pt range but that'd be concentrated and a fair bit higher at lower levels.

Didn't realise until today that the old thresholds were so uninspiring. The G/S/B is far better even if it's arguable if they go too far down to 60%. Maybe mimicing the Olympiad but with bigger ranges would have been better?

It's not super clear but the 'Previous Thresholds' listed on the UKMT page are the scores in the JK required to achieve a Merit in the JK in previous years.
Up until 2024 the only threshold within the JL was that the top 25% of scores in the JK would achieve a Merit
ukmt.org.uk/junior-challenges/junior-kangaroo-awards

New for 2025 are Gold, Silver & Bronze each are the top 10%, next 20% and next 30% (note the careful language)

A good explainer here:
https://mathsaurus.com/ukmt-junior-kangaroo-past-papers-and-grade-boundaries/

Thus new 2025 Silver threshold is the top 30% in 2025, actual score 101 (and Gold, the top 10% at 113)
The 2024 Merit threshold was the top 25%, actual score 103.
To me this would indicate scores on average might be possibly only a smidge higher this year, or not really at all.
(Distributions can get lumpy towards the tails in these)

The Junior Kangaroo 2025 Thresholds are out:
https://ukmt.org.uk/junior-challenges/junior-kangaroo-awards

So this means schools should also have individual scores also today

This sounds very much like my DD's experience with the 2 well, 2 OK, 1 Bad. She did end up doing some last minute prep though but a lot of that was suggesting exam technique rather than answering questions.

I know it's only a sample of my DD plus 2 on here but I'm starting to wonder if the exam was easier than previous years? With a normal section B mean of early 20s it would appear all our DC's have exceeded that.

The JMO dropped into conversation again this morning with my DD and she's firmed up her thoughts, she seems to think she's about 22 marks for the 2 well + 1 bad.

Gosh - your children are giving you so
many details. My DD has been focusing on revising for eoy exams so she spent very little time looking at past Olympiad papers. Her school did not provide any preparation for it. She said that the Olympiad paper was fun - she completely missed out one questions - the algebra one, thinks she answered two really well, two more, okay, but she wasn’t sure and the did a bit of work on Q6 and then ran out of time.

That's great to hear, unbelievable for a year 5. To answer them all is fantastic for that age. Likewise my DD was pumped up even though she knew it was going to be far from easy. I wish my DD had the opportunity to take the exam earlier, I think she'd have got a Kangaroo.

I think the workings element is critical but I think it's guesswork about what qualifies for it, and what marks a candidate would get for a correct answer and skeleton workings. We see the solutions but perhaps a different approach is equally or at least part worthy.

It's all about waiting for the results now, I'm curious more than anything. I read this tweet from UKMT yesterday when someone enquired.

"Marking for the JMO takes place at the end of the month. We cannot confirm an exact date for the results to be released, however, we will be in touch with schools as soon as they are available. Team UKMT."

So I'd expect results early July.