Harold does the double

Harold Raven, a Year 9 student, has again proved himself to be one of the world’s top Computing students. Competing against students from over forty countries, Harold was placed ‘Best in School’ for his age group in the international Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge earlier in the year.  This earned him a place in the ‘invitation only’ TCS Oxford Computing Challenge (OCC) which took place in school in March.

Just before the school closures, we found out that Harold excelled in this challenge too, scoring the maximum points, making no errors at all and, in doing so, secured a place in the prestigious TCS Finals for the second time since he started Richmond School!

The TCS Finals is an elite competition for the top 20 students in their respective age groups. The school closures weren’t going to stop these talented students, and they were permitted to take part from their own homes under the supervision of an adult.

The organisers at Oxford University said: “The students who have reached the final round are amazingly talented! They qualified for the OCC by scoring in the top 10% in Bebras; they have then solved more problems in the OCC first round than thousands of other qualifying students, and now find themselves in an elite group of very high achievers. Out of around a quarter of a million original Bebras participants, only 84 have made it to these finals – roughly one in 3,000!”

Due to the current situation, Harold received his certificate electronically coming 14^th in his group, an amazing achievement.