FOUR Hedingham School students have been showing off their ability as they claimede third place in a Maths Feast. 

Stan Clayton, Jemma Jones, Lily Newton and Lauryn Parsons took a trip to St. Benedict's Catholic School in Bury St Edmunds to test their skills against 12 other schools. 

Hedingham's team finished an impressive third out of thirteen, finishing just four points behind winners County Upper of Bury St Edmunds.

The Maths Feast, organised by the Further Mathematics Support Programme, contained five rounds; a true or false question round, a countdown round, a comprehension round where the pupils were confronted by some mathematics they have never seen before and a problem solving round.

There was also a challenging relay round where the group of four was split into two pairs and one pair could only answer their question when given the answer by the other pair.

The students listed the comprehension round as their favourite, where they were asked questions on tables of square numbers and methods used to find squares and square roots before the invention of the calculator.

The team said they really enjoyed learning about new branches of mathematics, and felt a real sense of accomplishment of figuring this difficult concept of maths out for themselves.

This attitude to embrace the challenge of deciphering new concepts no doubt contributed greatly to make this round the highest scoring for the group.

All four students were commended by staff from other schools for their enthusiasm towards mathematics and willingness to listen to each other’s ideas before coming to an answer.

They have all voiced their intentions to study mathematics beyond GCSE, and the team, buoyed by their success at the Year 10 Maths Feast have already asked if they can be the same team for the Sixth Form Maths Challenge in a couple of years time.