Lightning calculations in Benissa

LAURA AUSINA, aged 7, has come top in a mental arithmetic challenge. Laura, a pupil at the Manuel Bru school in Benissa, was participating in the Aloha Mental Arithmetic championships in Madrid.

Along with 400 other children aged between 5 and 13, she had to perform 70 operations in her head in under five minutes, with only brainpower and an abacus to assist her.

The championship is aimed at boosting children’s mental aptitudes in a method that has been adopted by around 1,000 of the province’s schools.