A group of schoolgirls who competed against a number of different schools across the country have been awarded gold certificates for their efforts.

The pupils from St Margaret’s School, Bushey, were entered into the junior, intermediate and senior rounds of the UKMT Challenges.

Each year the school enters pupils but this year they had notable success in the intermediate challenge and gold certificates were awarded to four of their pupils.

Head of maths Stephen Moore said: “We are absolutely delighted by the enthusiasm and achievement of our pupils.

“In the maths department we always aim to make the subject more exciting and develop inquisitiveness and this has clearly been demonstrated by our girls.”

Shirley Jiang, Year 10, and Ivy Guo, Year 11, both achieved high scores that they qualified for the follow-on round where Ivy was awarded a certificate of participation.

Year 9 Selena Zhu’s score allowed her to take part in the Cayley Olympiad. She gained full marks for five out of the six questions making her one of the top fifty participants in the country.

She was awarded a certificate of distinction, a book prize and a medal.