Bebras Challenge

Started in 2011, the Bebras challenge originated in Holland and now runs in over 50 countries with millions of students participating. It is an initiative aiming to promote Informatics (Computer Science or Computing) and computational thinking among school students at all ages. The tasks are fun, engaging and based on problems that computer scientists often meet and enjoy solving. More than 300 New Zealand Schools took part this year, providing almost 4000 Kiwi contestants.

At Middleton we had 296 Year 8-13 students, mostly from our Digital Technologies classes, taking part. Each was given 45 minutes to answer 15 multiple-choice questions that focused on computational and logical thinking. Although several years since Middleton was last represented, our students did extremely well, with 38 awarded Merit (over 65% correct answers) and a further 26 awarded Distinction for achieving scores of 80% or better.

Four students are to be especially congratulated for getting 100% of their answers correct. Luke Churton, Year 8 and competing in the 10-12 age group, was one of only 11 students, nationwide, to manage this. Similarly, Isobel Jack, Year 10, was one of only 18 in her 12-14 age group. Alex Lau and Caleb Couperus, both Year 11,were two of only 14 to accomplish this in their 14-16 age group. We can praise God for the special abilities he has given these four students, enabling them to stand out amongst the very best computational thinkers in New Zealand high schools.