Photos – Bebras students, Heidi (Year 7) and Mahdiyah (Year 9)

By Ms Davies (Computer Science Teacher)

This term BGS students have had the opportunity to take part in several computing competitions - the most notable being the CyberFirst Girls Competition open to Year 8, and Bebras, Oxford University’s annual computational thinking challenge.

The CyberFirst Girls competition is run by the National Cyber Security Centre, part of GCHQ and aims to provide a fun but challenging environment to encourage and inspire the next generation of young women to consider computer science as an option with a view to a future career in cyber security. This year 18 girls in Year 8 took part across five teams, solving puzzles across four different disciplines: logic and coding, networking, cryptography and cyber security. 

After a ten-day battle which ended at noon on Wednesday 30th November team ‘Fish Lovers’ was victorious - formed of Amna Hussain, Jia Kirkpatrick, Nora Nihad and Anwesha Singh. They and the other teams will be presented with certificates and prizes at assembly in January.

The Bebras Computing Challenge introduces computational thinking to students. It is organised in over 50 countries each year, and each participant answers questions that focus on computational thinking and logical thinking. Participants are split into age categories based on school year, and aim to solve as many problems as they can in 40 minutes. The only twist is that there are three categories of questions, the hardest category yields 12 points for a correct answer, but loses four for an incorrect attempt! 

29 students took part in November, from Years 7 to Upper Sixth. Merit and Distinction certificates were awarded to those who came in the top 50% and 25% of marks within school, but three Gold certificates were awarded to BGS students who were ranked in the top 10% nationally: Mahdiyah Meghji (Year 9), Sara Asei and Heidi Krailing (Year 7). Their outstanding marks mean they are automatically invited to take part in the Oxford University Computing Challenge in January.