By Ms Davies (Computer Science Teacher)

Class 5PW marked the end of a year of Computer Science lessons by participating in a cryptography challenge written by Ms Davies. Working in small teams, they solved ten perplexing problems using their knowledge of cryptography, networking, and game development.

Before they began, teams discussed their strategy and reflected on past problem-solving experiences both in Computer Science and other subjects to decide how to approach the challenge.

Throughout the challenge, they demonstrated critical thinking, collaboration, and perseverance. They decoded messages in ASCII, Morse code, Caesar and pigpen ciphers amongst others, and cracked other puzzles in the phonetic alphabet, British Sign Language and semaphore. All the puzzles helped them piece together a final action to complete to seize the prize!

All participants earned house points, with bonus points for first, second and third place. Now the challenge for 5PW is to keep the answers secret as 5W, 5K and 5C will tackle the challenge next week.