Nine clever kids put their brainpower to the test and have been rewarded with an invitation to join Mensa.

Year Ten pupils Aaron Smith, William King, Tom Pratt, Charlotte Smith, Hannah Broad, Freddie Tothill, Ethan Chiswick, Megan Naylor-Jones and Year 13 student James Looby had to complete a challenging test in order to join Mensa, a society for people with a high IQ.

The William De Ferrers pupils test included verbal reasoning questions and word association, sequence and pattern challenges.

Hannah, 14, of Maldon, said: “My mother became a member when she was younger so she desperately wanted me to beat her score – and I did!

“It was a difficult test particularly because of the vocabulary used.”