Four intelligent students secured a £2,000 prize for their school after making it to the top three of the Bank of England’s Target Two Point Zero competition.

The four pupils, Sunny Dasgupta, Haseem Shah, Shane Vamadevan (the team captain) and Sandeep Vijayakumar, are all in Year 13 at Ilford County High School, Fremantle Road, Barkingside.

They travelled to the Bank of England’s headquarters in Threadneedle Street, London, to compete in the national final.

The team had to put themselves into the position of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) and come to a decision regarding how to keep inflation at its target level of two point zero.

They then presented their decision to a judging panel, which included Spencer Dale, chief economist of the Bank of England and Hugh Pym, chief economics correspondent for the BBC.

Team member Haseem Shah said: “We are all extremely proud of our achievement, as are our parents and staff of the school. We were up against some extremely stiff competition throughout and are happy to come in the top three”.

Teacher Henry Tiller said: “It’s an extraordinary achievement by the four boys because the competition involves just over three hundred schools nationwide, so they technically managed to get themselves into third place nationally, in the whole of the UK”.

Oundle school, East Midlands were the winning team and Bishop Wordsworth’s School, Salisbury were the runners up.