St Mary's girls score exceptionally high results in Oxford University Computing Challenge 2023

Following the outstanding successes of our Year 2, Year 4 and Year 6 girls in the ‘Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge 2022’ in November,  four of our Year 6 girls (who achieved scores in the top 10% nationally out of the 106,780 students in their age group) were invited to participate in the online ‘Oxford University Computing Challenge 2023’.  This is an invitation-only challenge for talented UK students to produce fully programmed solutions to computational thinking problems within strict time constraints.  They were also joined by five Year 7 and Year 8 girls who were invited to participate as a result of their exceptional performances in the OUCC competition whilst at the Junior School.  The Year 7 and Year 8 girls were supported remotely via Teams and email by Mr. Severy throughout their preparations, before coming back to the Junior School to participate in the Challenge itself. 

The Challenge took place during the week beginning 16 January and the official results have just been released.  Nationally, 6,338 students participated in the ‘Junior’ age category (Year 6 and Year 7) and ​9,564 students in the 'Intermediate' age category (Year 8 and Year 9), and we are delighted that, despite the reduction of the time limit from one hour to forty-five minutes (but with the same number of questions!), all of our girls achieved superb scores.

In addition, special congratulations to Kiana S., who was presented with a 'Merit Award', putting her in the top 11% of entrants nationally!  This was an extremely impressive achievement in the context of all of those entrants already having had to qualify in the top 10% nationally, and 8% of 'Junior' entrants across the country scoring 0 points, in what is an immensely difficult challenge.

We are also delighted with our girls' overall performance compared to National Results:

Junior (Year 6 and Year 7)

Intermediate (Year 8 and Year 9)

Once again, the girls have demonstrated their resilience, perseverance, and enthusiasm by competing under pressure at the highest level.  All of their hard work during the preparations for the competition really did pay off and they should be extremely proud of what they have achieved.