The three main computing competitions that students participated in are the Bebras Challenge, the Oxford University Computing Challenge (OUCC) and the British Informatics Olympiad (BIO), and several students take part in these each year.

The Bebras Challenge is an international online competition that tests students' problem-solving and computational thinking skills. All students in Key Stage 3 took part in the competition, while those taking computer science in Key Stage 4 and 5 also competed. The competition comprised a range of questions that tested the students' abilities to think logically and creatively. Our students did remarkably well, with nearly 250 qualifying from Bebras to compete in the first round of the OUCC. At the end of the OUCC we had two finalists: Egeman in Year 9 and Boris in Year 12, who both qualified for the finals in March. This was a fantastic achievement, and they finished 8th and 6th respectively.

The British Informatics Olympiad (BIO) is another prestigious competition that challenges students to solve complex problems using their coding and analytical skills. All students in Key Stage 5 were given the opportunity to compete, along with some from KS4. The competition included a range of programming challenges and logic puzzles. Our students worked hard and showed an impressive level of creativity and problem-solving skills. Again, we had two students who qualified for the national finals at Cambridge University, Akshaiyram in Year 13 and Boris in Year 12. This was a great opportunity for them to showcase their skills and compete with the best students in the country, and both students were selected for the final teams that compete in Europe and internationally. Boris was selected for the European team and Akshaiyram for both the European and International teams. Congratulations to both and we wish them good luck in their respective competitions this summer.

What follows is a summary of Boris’ first experience at a coding competition:

Last weekend, I participated in the Western European Olympiad in Informatics (WEOI), an international contest where participants are given four hours to solve four challenging algorithmic problems. Ten countries participated, each of which had put forth their top six problem solvers from around the country. Competitive programming is a unique and challenging discipline. For some problems, the statement is easy to digest, and the main difficulty is in making a highly performant algorithm.

There are many important decisions when improving performance, one of which is choosing a data structure to use; even those taught at A level such as stacks, queues and maps are used extremely often at the highest level of competitive programming. For others, the difficulty lies in the problem itself – often, problems are given elaborate backstories and strange scenarios, and it is up to you to abstract the problem into something more understandable. Some problems require decomposing the convoluted task into smaller and more manageable chunks, something that is practiced often in maths and science subjects.

Competitive programming not only requires a high level of mathematical ability, but also requires creativity – to look at the problem from the correct perspective. Often, there is more than one correct algorithm that will solve the problem – sometimes, it’s one that the problem authors did not think of beforehand! I performed well enough in a series of entrance tests to be part of the United Kingdom’s team, and I was lucky enough to have the chance to be flown out to Eindhoven, in the Netherlands, to participate in the contest on-site.

I was excited to fly out of the UK, for it had been the first time in five years that I had left the country – and although the trip was brief (two nights), I really enjoyed my time there. Aside from the contest itself, getting to know my teammates even better by staying in a hotel room with them, and talking to contestants from other countries (who all spoke English fluently!) was a great experience. The contest is open to anybody still in high school, and there were a range of ages of participants – mostly Year 13, with some Year 12s, and even a few Year 11s! Out of the sixty participants, the top five are awarded a gold medal, the next ten are awarded a silver medal, the next fifteen are awarded a bronze medal and the next thirty do not win anything. Being my first year participating in an international Olympiad, I was thrilled to hear that I had won a bronze medal, placing 25th on the leader board. In fact, the UK team was the only team in the competition whose entire team each won a medal, making us the unofficial winners of the event! I’ll be able to participate again next year, provided I pass all the necessary exams. Next year the Olympiad will be hosted in England, and I’m aiming to get a gold medal next time!

Boris (Year 12)