A THUNDERSLEY secondary school has been ranked in the top ten in the UK in an intelligence challenge.

King John School, in Shipwrights Drive, competed against schools in the Vocab Express Global Challenge at the start of March, finishing tenth for the overall challenge, and second for French.

In the French competition, four of the King John pupils came in the top ten, the most from any school.

Year 11 pupil Holly Wilkie came fourth, Year 10 Bailey Aston came sixth, Year 10 Christopher Shaw came seventh and Year 11 Saffron Webb came ninth in the country.

Gemma Fordyce, director of modern foreign languages, said: “Their achievements are fantastic.

“The pupils and the school are very proud, especially considering we were competing against such a high calibre of international and grammar schools.”