Junior maths challenge 2025

[scisso]

Does anyone know when the results and boundaries get announced? How was this year’s paper in comparison to previous years?

DD sat it and thought some of them were quite hard so had to guess them, but she hasn’t done much of the past papers so doesn’t have much to compare against.

any insights would be very much appreciated.

Not sure, but the kangaroo and Olympiad are on June 10th, so I would guess possibly they get results before half term?

Thanks @BananaDaiquiri
did yours take it? What did they make of it?

DD found it considerably harder this year than last. The boundaries were published within 1-2 weeks of the JMC in recent years so it could be in the coming days or by mid next week. I expect the boundaries to be slightly lower than last year.

If you look at the boundaries last year, candidates needed 23/25 to qualify for the JMO so I guess they made some of the later questions much harder to ensure there is room for differentiation among the top candidates.

The boundaries will be published here:
https://ukmt.org.uk/junior-challenges/junior-maths-challenge-awards

The solutions are on the website if your DC can remember how they answered.

My son said he found it much easier than last year but I think that’s because last year was the first time he sat it. He got kangaroo last year (one point off Olympiad which he was very annoyed at). He’s a real maths wiz though, let’s see if he’s over confident or not in the next week!

I'm interested too as my son sat this also. He didn't do it last year as they asked who wanted to do it and he was a firm no as he get stressed out by tests (can't cope with getting anything less than 100%). His school simply took him out of class to go sit it with the others, he didn't know until he was being sat down to do it! He coped with it pretty well and thought he "might have got the last one wrong" - he guessed at it, but I am worried that he thinks he did better than he did. Was relieved when a teacher explained that they don't get the scores, just a certificate - just hope he is happy with the colour of it. I won't be showing him the solutions online as he'll get upset if he sees he got some wrong :-(

Thanks all. DD doesn’t remember what she put for most of the questions so can’t self mark unfortunately.

https://ukmt.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/JMC-2025-Solutions.pdf here are the answers.

Last year the results took a week, but I haven't heard anything yet today!

My DD and her friends said they found it harder this year than last year, partly because they found doing the paper answer sheet a faff I think. But we'll see! I was hoping they wouldn't tell them their results until after their SATs next week as it might not be the confidence boost they need.

Excellent info on historical boundaries and time to results here:
Last year just 6 days, the fastest ever, as already noted but a Bank Holiday to consider this time.
mathsaurus.com/junior-maths-challenge-grade-boundaries/

Yes also last year's boundary to Olympiad was highest ever (and very tough as you could only get at most 2 wrong from the 25, and errors do happen at this age).
Olympiad is quite the different beast requiring solid written solutions to gain full marks.
Looking at the actual JMC paper compared to 2024 IMHO a few of easier ones (1-15) are more straightforward but then two tricksy ones maybe a few more challenging ones in second section, so yes very possible intent was to stretch the upper marks out a little more this year.

Curious, does the post about SATs as imply y6s sitting the paper?
JMC is designed for y7 and y8 but the topics are very accessible so yes some y6 totally able to take it but it can be a bit brutal for y6 i.e. y6 kids who are even '120 math SAT level' may not do well in JMC as it's just rather different to (primary) school maths, unless they've done a bit of practice. Can build resilience if framed well tho, so I hope this has been done. Apols if I've misunderstood.

Good luck all!

PS I can really recommend Simon Singh's free website for your little mathsters, one of the best free math resources out there.

parallel.org.uk/

Many thanks all for the info. I’ll update as soon as I see the results are out. Hopefully we’ll get them sometime in the next week or so. Not sure what I’m expecting but the waiting is killing me (not DD)!

@Bear2014 hope SATs go well for your dd!

Quite a lot of younger children doing it I think. Our school offers it from Year 5, about 10 of them did it last year and our DD and a couple of her Y5 friends got silver. She obviously now wants to beat her last year's score which is not a given at all especially since it seems to have been hard this year. A couple of Y6 kids got gold last year so that has also set the expectation in her head that she can do it! It's done in a very casual, no pressure way.

My DS is year 7 and did it for the first time. He said it was harder than sats and 11 plus (no surprise). His school did no prep at all so he didn't know what to expect as it was all rather short notice. He said he could do some and guessed others. No idea how the school inform parents of results so just a wait and see :)

I think my son's school are expecting the results by Monday. He is Year 8 now. He sat it in Year 6 and got Gold, and last year he scored 121 and qualified for the Kangaroo and was 2 marks.off the Olympiad. He thought that this year's one was easier - but that could be because he's older. Good luck to everyone!

Isn't the one taken in Y5/Y6 called the Primary Maths Challenge?

Then the Junior Maths Challenge is Y7/Y8. Then the Intermediate Maths Challenge (I think it's called) is Y9/Y10.

Oooh. I'm not sure, but just a few children from my son's school were chosen in Year 6 to sit the JMC. I don't think anyone in his school did a Primary Maths Challenge.

For y5 and y6 there is the Primary Maths Challenge that is run by the MA in November (so already happened)
https://www.primarymathschallenge.org.uk/
They allow schools to award some in-school certificates themselves .
Then there is an invited Bonus Round (if you score above 21/25) which has medals awarded on a full national entry basis
www.primarymathschallenge.org.uk/bonus-round
A gold medal in the Bonus round is only achieved by about 0.3% of the entrants to the PMC so is very impressive feat (similar odds to getting into JMO)

Good modern maths teaching has an emphasis on deepening topics to mastery, rather than extending topic knowledge too early for bright pupils
A y5 achieving a silver in the JMC is a fantastic effort - that's getting about 50-65% of the questions correct - I'm sure the same pupil would do very well in the PMC and perhaps have an even greater sense of achievement.
I'm very pleased to learn it's presented casual, no pressure way by your school, well done them!

I had a go at it myself to see what it was like and was quite pleased to score 123 (got 17 and 25 wrong - I hate those type of questions) and was feeling quite chuffed until my husband reminded me it was for children up to age 13!

My sons school has pmc and jmc both from year 4 onwards. My son got a jmc silver in y4 and pmc bonus round silver in y5. Jmc this year he said paper was easier than some practice ones he did in previous years. He doesn't remember the answers so hard to tell.

That's still very impressive It's aimed at differentiating between very bright 13 year olds - the vast majority of the population couldn't get anywhere near that score; I got 21 and I have a maths heavy STEM PhD.

DD sat it for the first time this year and found it hard, but she’s at a state school and they didn’t prepare - just put in the 2 top sets in y7

My Year 6 did the primary maths challenge and got through to bonus and did really well in that bonus round.
Found this easy and checked answers and only guessed one.
Never had this DC down as really good at Maths but maybe they are. Older brother did A level Maths really early so my views are possibly skewed as to what constitutes good at Maths. This particular Year 6 DC is good at logic and English and loves problem solving.

DD sat both PMC and JMC in Y6 and found JMC harder but they did no prep for it and were told by the school a couple of days prior.

@Ubertomusic - my Year 11 is good at Maths and never enjoyed Maths competitions. Just not her thing. Of course she got Gold etc but never Olympiad. She is not at all a competitive person, much more collaborative. Even with Music, she prefers chamber groups to solo performances.
DS in Year 6 just seems more competitive to me.
So I am not sure what is nature and what is raw ability, and yes, what is in some cases sweating the past papers and enjoying that kind of logic.
I bet there are loads of kids really good at Maths who just do not like this kind of thing, for whatever reason. But it is fun and great extension for some kids.

Hi mums and dads,
My DS a Year 7 student at an outstanding state school did JMC for the first time. In his primary school, I don't think anybody did it. I was wondering whether those who did PMC, JMC in their primary schools studied at private/prep schools? I would be pleased if you could write me about your experiences of this. This would help me navigate my 3 year old DD's education journey (state school vs prep/independent school?)
My son takes AoPS virtual courses (now taking pre-algebra one) (virtual.aopsacademy.org/. ) and he used to take some hourly-based courses with Kevin Olding
( https://mathsaurus.com/junior-maths-challenge-grade-boundaries/#juniorpapers). Could you please your kids' maths learning/competition prep experiences? We are new to the UK schooling system (coming from Uzbekistan) and have no idea how to better help and support my kids' with their education.

Many thanks in advance.