Oxford University Computing Challenge

All students in Years 7 and 8, and those taking Computer Science GCSE in Year 10, took part in the Bebras Computing Challenge in November 2022. This national competition tested their computational thinking (problem solving) skills.

Those that scored in the top 10% in the country were invited to take part in the Oxford University Computing Challenge (OUCC) in January 2023. The students invited were Miranda Opilowska, Anvi Patil, Dominik Walczak, Zofia Wojcik, Prananya Sudagar, Jakub Kordonski and Jakub Surowiak, plus 4 Year 8 students that scored in the top 10% in the country in the November 2021 – Bebras – Abigail Gela, Maya Krupa, Lukasz Ksiazek and Reuben O’Brien.

Some Year 8 students that did well in the Bebras competition were asked to be entered in the OUCC. These students were Priscilla Basil, Gabriel Do Vale, Hadija Ibrahim, Gabriel Nyarko and Nathaniel Valdez.

All students found the OUCC exceedingly difficult, but they demonstrated great resilience by continuing to try to solve the challenges until every second of their allocated 45 minutes had been used up.

• • In the Junior (Year 6 and 7) competition there were 6,342 competitors in the UK and the average score was 12.9. Anvi scored 18 and Zofia scored 14, so they both performed above average.

  • In the Intermediate (Year 8 and 9) competition there were 9,565 competitors and the average score was 14.1. Gabriel Do Vale, Maya and Lukasz each scored 18 and were therefore above average.

  • In the Senior competition there were 2,877 competitors and the average score was 8.2. Jakub Kordonski scored 8 and was therefore only just below average in the country.

In the Intermediate competition they needed a score of 60 and in the Junior and Senior competitions 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.