News

A team of four boys from King Edward's School have won this year's Schools Challenge competition to become national champions. Schools Challenge is the national general knowledge competition for schools in the UK and uses the same basic rules as University Challenge.

Henry Tonks (Sixths), Oli Clarke (Fourths), Yanbo Yin (Upper Middles) and Patrick Wernham (Upper Middles) defeated last year's winners, Lancaster Royal Grammar School (RGS), and five time winners Westminster School in the final to become worthy champions.

The match against the reigning champions in the quarter final proved to be the team's toughest match as RGS edged into a steady 100 point lead before the King Edward's boys undertook a vital passage of play to overturn the deficit and establish a lead of their own. They ended up winning the match with 890 points to 580.

The next step was the semi-finals where the boys competed against Abbey School in a scrappy, error strewn match. A strong finish of 860 points to 490 saw the boys safely to the final.

The greatest victory by far was in the final against Westminster School, who were entering their eighth successive National Finals. This turned out to be their most straight forward match of the day, despite a fairly close start. The team entered into unstoppable mode, and thanks in part to Oli Clarke and his knowledge of the Eurovision song contest, they stormed to victory with an impressive 1000 points to 640!

Overall the boys gave a brilliant performance against the best teams in the country. To defeat last year's winners and the mighty Westminster was an incredible feat and makes the boys worthy National Champions.