FOUR of Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College’s best maths students have taken part in the national final of a major competititon after winning a regional heat.

The Darlington students triumphed in the regional final of the Durham and Tees Valley UK Senior Team Maths Challenge - an annual competition run by the UK Mathematics Trust and the Further Maths Support Programme – before competing in the final in London.

Wes Chow, Joe Wall, Ben Donaldson and Cameron Grove beat twenty other schools and colleges to go through to the national final.

In the Final, Wes, Joe, Ben and Cameron competed against 59 other teams from all over the UK, each of which had won one of the other regional finals and included many teams from prestigious public schools such as Eton and Harrow.

The finalists’ challenges included answering ten difficult questions as a group, completing a mathematical cross number, working in pairs and a mathematical relay race against the clock.

The QE team managed to achieve an extremely impressive 14th place, having scored highly in all three rounds.

Helen Greaves, course leader for A level maths at QE, said: “All of the students thoroughly enjoyed the trip to London and performed brilliantly in the national final. It was a great experience for them and they did QE proud. To finish in the top 25 per cent was a tremendous achievement.”