Golds galore as trio achieve perfection in computing competition
Three boys achieved perfect scores in a national computing skills competition – while dozens of QE pupils won prizes.
Two hundred and seven pupils entered the UK BEBRAS Challenge at QE – and well over half of them (123) reached the top 10% nationally, earning themselves Gold awards and qualifying for the next round.
Head of Digital Teaching and Learning Michael Noonan said: “We recognise the importance of digital literacy and critical thinking – and this competition is very effective at developing both.
“My congratulations go to all our many prize-winners on a great performance, and especially to Year 8’s Ehan Islam & Robin Peng and Year 10’s Ryan Uppal: their perfect scores put them in joint-first place nationally, which is a tremendous achievement.
“The outcomes of our students has once again surpassed all national benchmarks and puts us in a uniquely strong position; one of the highest achieving schools in the computing based challenge. I offer my thanks to all staff in STEM subjects, where this type of logic is developed, as well as those who give of their time to run the many coding-based clubs throughout the school.”
Organised by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, the UK BEBRAS Challenge is open to young people aged 6–19. QE pupils entered in three age categories, namely Intermediate (Years 8 & 9); Seniors (Years 10 & 11); and Élites (Years 12 & 13).
At QE, 105 pupils entered in the Intermediate category, 72 in the Seniors, and 30 in the Élites.
The aim is to introduce computational thinking to young people. Computational thinking is defined as involving the thought processes and problem-solving methods used to develop algorithms; it includes skills such as: decomposition, pattern-recognition, abstraction, evaluation, generalisation, debugging, and logical reasoning.
While the Gold awards are given based on performance against the national results, the competition’s other awards depend on relative performance within a school. These are:
- Best in School prizes – awarded at QE to Ehan and Robin jointly, to Ryan, and to William Joanes, of Year 13
- Distinction prizes: awarded to the top 25% in each year group
- Merit prizes: awarded to the next 25%
- Participation certificates: awarded to the remaining 50%.
The QE cohort’s overall performance was so strong that not only did all the School’s Distinction and Merit prize-winners reach the national top 10% and receive Gold awards, but so also did some of those receiving Participation certificates. These boys have been invited to take part in the next round – the BEBRAS Coding Challenge – a 45-minute competition that will take place in March.
“It was a fun way to engage with computational thinking” said Artharv Sharma of Year 8.