ONE of Walney School's top maths whizzes has been selected to take part in a national competition.

The United Kingdom Mathematics Trust organises a series of challenges during the academic year to pit some of the country's most promising mathematicians against each other.

Year 7 pupil Jack Haney was Walney School's only qualifier in the national challenge after achieving a qualifying score of 80/135 in the Junior Challenge in April.

This week the 12-year-old sat the follow-on round, called the Junior Kangaroo, which is an invitation-only competition sat by around 8,000 across the UK.

Walney School maths teacher Mark Ingham said the entire school was "very proud" of Jack's efforts and achievements.

"Jack achieved a Gold award and the Best in School title in the Junior Challenge too," he said.

"The Junior Kangaroo is a one-hour multiple-choice paper, with 25 questions, which is sat in school. It is therefore similar to the Junior Challenge question paper but more challenging!

"Certificates of merit are awarded to the top 25 per cent and certificates of qualification to everyone else who takes part.

"Jack has done extremely well and we at Walney School are very proud of his efforts and his achievements."

One of the exam questions asked: "In four years Evie will be three times older than she was two years ago. How old will Evie be in one year?"

Pupils had to choose the correct age from the possible solutions of two, three, four, six and seven.

Answer: Let Evie’s age in years now be x. The information in the question tells us that x + 4 = 3(x − 2). Therefore x + 4 = 3x − 6 and hence 2x = 10 and x = 5. Therefore in one year’s time Evie will be 6.