St Joseph’s Primary School students among Australia’s best in NCSS Challenge
Need to crack a code? Just ask Cooper Winn, Dexter Maher or Milly McGrath, they will be able to help.
The trio of year 5 and 6 St Joseph’s Primary School students scored 100 per cent in a just-completed online computational thinking challenge.
More than 20,000 students from around Australia participated in the NCSS Challenge.
The five week event provided students with the chance to learn to code by solving interesting and engaging problems online.
The students were part of 120 school peers who started the event with most continuing past the halfway mark in the challenge.
Science and technology teacher Sarah Blundell said each of the school’s students persisted with the challenge which became more demanding as it neared the end of the five weeks.
“It is a tremendous effort by all students but particularly for Cooper, Dexter and Milly,” Ms Blundell said.
“The NCSS Challenge is run for students by the Australian Computing Academy at the University of Sydney. Each week for five weeks, a set of Blockly Coding teaching resources are distributed to participants.
“They include a set of questions testing this material. Participants submit their solutions to the challenge website where they are automatically marked.
“All students pushed themselves with some very challenging questions and they learnt so much about coding and computational thinking skills.
“Year 5 students Dexter and Milly along with year 6 student Cooper Winn came equal first with full marks in the newbie challenge which is designed for year 5 and 6.
“They competed with over 9500 students in Australia and other countries.”
Co-founder of Grok Learning, Dr Nicky Ringland says computer science skills are critical, whether you want to cure cancer, solve global warming or unlock the secrets of the universe.
“It’s really good to see these students making a positive start at a young age, and we hope their successes may encourage other people to take up coding too,” she said.
“The future is built with code, and it’s wonderful to see so many students getting involved.
“The NCSS Challenge is a key force in transforming Australian students from tech consumers, in to tech creators.”
Code crackers: St Joseph’s Primary School students Milly McGrath, Dexter Maher and Cooper Winn are, officially, tops in code cracking.
