Chatteris youngster Iman, 5, wins international mathematics competition

A five-year-old from Chatteris has won an online international mathematics competition.

Home-schooled Iman Guellec was the Level One champ in the eighth annual International Maths Olympiad.

The competition was run by British Youth International College (BYITC) and thousands of four to 14-year-olds from all over the world took part in the week-long free-to-enter challenge.

Iman’s parents, Shilla and Glenn Guellec, said: “BYITC has made maths a subject my child truly looks forward to. The teachers make every concept simple and fun to understand. The Olympiad preparation feels exciting rather than stressful.”

The online challenge is based on BYITC’s Abacus Maths programme, with 50 questions to be answered within one hour. Youngsters log into BYITC’s Zoom platform and take level-appropriate exams in front of invigilators

The top performers across each of 11 levels were awarded certificates and prizes for their impressive arithmetic skills.

BYITC’s founder, Dr Rashmi Mantri, said: “Congratulations to each of the winners. Every child who took part deserves enormous credit, as we can tell they gave it their best shot and worked very hard.

“The sheer scale of entries from across the globe is very satisfying and gives us confidence that there is a huge hunger out there for learning more about, and getting lots of fun from, playing with numbers.

“Young people are naturally competitive and derive lots of fun from playing and experimenting with numbers. Competitions like this prepare them for higher levels of assessments and exams as they go through their educational journey, as they work on time management and enhance their problem-solving skills.

“As we know from research, such high-level game playing promotes healthy competition, significantly boosts logical thinking skills, an excellent preparation for a future which is going to be dominated by AI.”