Sam beats over 79,900 students in national computational thinking challenge

Sam Denton, in Year 7, was a finalist in UK-wide competition – The Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge.  He was invited to the Department of Computer Science at the University of Oxford having qualified for the final in this prestigious event.

Reaching the final of the Juniors’ category (age 10–12) is an impressive achievement for Sam, as 79,986 students entered the first round for this age group. Sam was among the top 61 highest-achieving students invited to the final round and was presented with his finalist’s certificate by Peter Millican, Professor of Philosophy at Hertford College, University of Oxford.

Susan Thornton, Lead Teacher for IT and Computer Science, said: “We are very proud that Sam was invited to represent Richmond School at the Oxford Finals, it is an incredible achievement for a Year 7 student.”

The UK Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge, supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, is designed to get students excited about computing and computational thinking. It is a problem-solving contest with questions inspired by topics in computer science. In the first round, held in schools across the country, students have to try and solve as many problems as possible in the allotted time. There are six age categories. The highest-scoring students from the four oldest age groups (Elite, Seniors, Intermediate, and Juniors) are invited to the Department of Computer Science at Oxford for the finals.

For more information about this exciting challenge visit  Bebras