Bebras and Oxford University Computing Challenge

In November 2023, all students in Years 7 and 8 and those taking Computer Science GCSE in Year 11 took part in the Bebras Computing Challenge. This national competition tested their computational thinking (problem solving) skills and gave each student a score and a position within the school and within the whole country in their age group. The year 7s entered the Junior category where there was a total of 117,539 Year 6 and Year 7 participants. The average score in the country was 81.1 and the average score in our school was 61.9. There were 5 students who scored in the top 10% in the country:

In the intermediate age group, which is made up of Year 8 and Year 9 students, there were 209,813 participants. The average score in the country was 63.9 and the average score in Mount St Mary’s was 48.9. There were 2 students who scored in the top 10% in the country:

In the senior age group, which is made up of Year 10 and Year 11 students, there were 38,427 participants. The average score in the country was 73.3 and the average score in Mount St Mary’s was 59.9. Jakub Kordonski just missed being in the top 10% in the country with a score of 113 and a position of 4,052 in the country.

All the above students were invited to take part in the Oxford University Computing Challenge (OUCC). In addition, Miranda Opilowska, Zofia Wojcik and Dominik Walczak qualified to take part, as they were in the top 10% last year. Sem Zeremariam, Riley Clark, Carla Gunzon, Alissia Johns, Sachin Arunkumar and Gabriela Wierzchon were also invited to take part because they had done better this year than those that qualified last year. Sem and Sachin declined the invitation but everyone else took part in the first round of OUCC on 18th of January.

All students found the OUCC difficult, but they demonstrated great resilience by continuing to try to solve the challenges until every second of their allocated 50 minutes had been used up. In the Junior competition there were 6,400 competitors in the UK and the average score was 10.9 whilst our average score was 13.2. Three of our students scored above average, Timothy and Matthew scored 18 and Patrick scored an amazing 26, which earned him the very first certificate of Merit that anyone from this school has ever achieved. In the Intermediate competition there were 9,735 competitors and the average score was 11.4. We had four students whose score was above average, these were Anvi who scored a very impressive 20, Gabriella and Riley who scored 16 and Dominik who scored 14. In the senior competition there were 3154 competitors, and the average score was 14.2, Jakub Kordonski scored 10 which was very commendable as the competition fell within his GCSE mock exam period.

Approximately 20 students from each age category are invited to take part in the final round of the OUCC. In the Junior competition they needed a score of 54, in the Intermediate 56 and in the Senior competition a score of 66. Whilst none of our students came close to meeting this threshold, they can be extremely proud that they were invited to take part in this competition designed to find the very best
problem-solving brains in the Uk.