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.

No she didn't. She got well advanced by year 5 (to about end of KS3) by using apps and then kinda stopped doing extra. Since then it's just been schoolwork and the minimum amount of homework.

Like I could say she spends no time on it but she normally finishes 1st in class and high accuracy so she might have an extra 20 mins at the end of lessons working on harder stuff other kids dont get to. None of it's UKMT stuff tho, just a harder level of what went before.

They've a lot of subjects at this age and to be honest the fact the maths is sorted means she has more time to devote to everything else.

Edit: I forgot, she does a once a week lunchtime club at school and sometimes they'll do UKMT problems.

Now, JMC 2026 taken, what are your DC‘s impressions? Harder than the previous years‘ papers?

@MTHRVRD2030 I’m curious too. My DS did two past papers (no other prep at home or school) and he would have qualified for the Kangaroo both times. But today’s paper he said he ran out of time and basically had to guess three answers. So I think the chances of a similar outcome are slim this time round! He’s in Y5 and it was his first time doing it, so we weren’t expecting much.

The deadline to submit papers is 11.59 tonight (and I imagine that will shift with time zones) so the window is still open. But after that, does the UKMT release the answers on their website right away?

DD found it very hard as did all her friends and she is quite strong in Maths. @OpenaBook123 it doesn't say much about chances, since it may have been hard for everyone, the award thresholds might be lower this year. We will find out soon!

My son did the JMC today. Last year he qualified for the JMO in Y6 having only got one (easier!) question wrong so he got 130, but this year he is sure he got two wrong and possibly a third too. Knocked his confidence a bit. He scored gold in the recent IMC and got a gold in the Grey Kangaroo too so went in feeling excited today..