April 2017 Newsletter

Dear Parents and Carers

The term seems to have finished with something of a flourish – a flourish that, in many ways, sums up life at Camp Hill: busy, creative, generous, fun. As you read this newsletter, you’ll find reports on so much activity it gets hard to take it all in. Here are some thoughts just from the last couple of weeks.

Creative: the House Music Competition was of the usual high standard. Individuals that simply amaze you with their virtuosity, ensembles that have been formed just for the competition and yet play together as though they had been practising for years.

The drama production, The History Boys, was a stunning success. I’ve received several emails from people who attended expressing admiration and pleasure at the quality of the show. There were some brilliant performances, some of them from boys who have risen from nowhere to stardom. I won’t pick any out individually, because when I start to think like that I struggle to draw the line – I always want to name just one more until I find I’ve named them all. I will add another comment, too: Mr Southworth, who has been directing and producing these shows since Sir Henry Irving trod the boards, commented on what a pleasure this particular bunch were to work with. I enjoyed hearing that.

The House Public Speaking competition was its usual high standard. Congratulations to all those who took part; by reaching the finals they were already winners – a cliché, but true.

F1 in Schools national finals proved a learning experience for our boys, who did brilliantly to get that far, even if they found some better teams there waiting for them.

And only last weekend, our boys were flying the King Edward’s flag at the Students’ Robotics competition in Newbury.

Sporting: I was umpiring senior House Cricket the other day. What a pleasure that was. Boys simply enjoying the competition of the House system. Sporting and fun. On a couple of occasions I saw something that looked a bit like cricket, too. (And House hockey…and House tennis)

Generous: yesterday, I and three colleagues found ourselves sitting in a row of chairs having wet sponges thrown at us, or buckets of water tipped on us. This was in aid of a primary school in Zanzibar. A few days earlier we had listened enthralled in assembly to a senior boy telling us all about his commitment to a school on this exotic island. Not so exotic for the non-tourists. He showed us photos of the real hardship faced by pupils at the school he has visited and will visit. So now the boys were paying 25p a pop to throw a sponge at their teachers.

A week or two before that, we had another charitable event. (Actually, I wonder if the charitable cause was a bit lost in the enthusiasm for the activity. Oh, well.) An Old Boy of the school asked us to sponsor him to go on a trek in the Himalayas to raise money for charity. Mr Burgess decided our sponsored event would be to row the length of the Himalayas over the course of two weeks, using the school’s indoor rowing machines. Somehow the idea caught the imagination of boys and staff and a two week rowathon was upon us. Morning, noon and evening the fitness room was jam-packed with excited rowers. Boys were arriving early in the morning to beat the rush; you had to queue to get on one of the seven machines in use. (The challenge, 2400 km, was conquered with a day to spare.)

The King Edward’s Foundation continues to fund the schools to run activities for primary school children under the ‘Opening Doors’ initiative. And so it was that last week there were a dozen or so excited junior school teams gathered in our Hall to compete in the Primary Maths Team Challenge.

Parents continue to astonish me with their generous support of the school. Not only do they contribute to the ongoing enrichment programme through regular donations to the AFS, but also many have made additional pledges to support our ambition to provide 6^th Formers with the facilities they deserve and need.

This is the last newsletter before boys sit their external exams – GCSEs, AS Levels and A Levels. We know that as usual you will do yourselves, your parents and us proud. There will, of course, be the headline grabbers, but I look forward to late August, when I will hear the excited and proud staff expressing delight for those who have worked so hard to fulfil their potential and have earned grades that show their commitment and effort. We know how hard many of you work and admire you. I wish you all the best as you try to balance work, rest and play over the couple of weeks away from school. Please, please think about that balance. You hard workers: programme in relaxation and a good night’s sleep. You lazy ones: plan your programme and stick to it; you really are in the final straight now. I hope the exams go brilliantly.

And all the best to those staff who are leaving us. Mrs Cummings has been covering Miss Rawlins’s maternity leave in art so, with Miss Rawlins’s return we say farewell to Mrs Cummings. Mrs Atwell begins her maternity leave now – we wish her a safe and happy outcome. A few days ago we said goodbye to Mr Iacangelo, IT technician, who moves on for career progression. Mr Watson stepped in to fill a part-time vacancy in the RS Department but other commitments mean he leaves us now; he goes with our gratitude.

That’s some of the last two weeks covered – please read on to find out about the whole term.

Happy Easter!

Martin Garrod

On Tuesday 7th of March two people; one girl and one boy; performed a comedic play - entirely in French - for the entertainment of members of multiple different schools. The clever thing about this play though, aside from being performed in French, was the choreography. The girl was the main character of Coletta while the boy’s roles included a bored delivery man, a thieving teen, a desperate boyfriend and many more. The amusing mimes and clarity in which the actors spoke enabled me, as a second year learner of French, to understand the story. All together I think that this was a funny and well-performed play which I enjoyed immensely.

Will Taylor

German Spelling Bee Report – Year 8 - 2017

The 30^th of March was a competitive day for three year 8 boys, because this marked the annual Boys vs Girls German Spelling Bee competition, held in the Girls’ school. The three of us (Me, Zain and Will in 8K) had practised, or so it seemed, because as soon as the competition had started, we knew we were in for a big surprise. Zain bravely went first and performed well, however, as soon as the first girl had begun to rattle the words, we knew our hopes were diminishing. However, all was not gone as we secured a 3^rd place with the first and second being awarded to the girls. Special Mention must go to Mrs Wells for helping us learn the words and Will and Zain for taking part. We hope that the next year 8s can do better than us to beat our very good rivals.

Ali Elsherbiny 8K

Work experience at King-David Primary School
from 23. January to 03. February 2017

At my work experience in Birmingham, from 23. January to 3. February 2017,  I was in the King David Primary school in the nursery.

Every morning I had to get the bus at 8.00 o’clock am, because I had to be in the school at 8.30 am. But the bus came late every day.

Almost every morning the kids were learning at this time I just sat next to them and listened to the educator/teacher. Afterwards the kids had playtime, where I played with them, for example puzzle or in the kitchen a birthday party.

Lunchtime was at 11.50 o’clock am. There I had brought the children food and helped to clean up. From 12.20 o'clock to 13.20 o'clock I had my lunchbreak. I spend my lunchbreak always with Merle.

At 3.15 o’clock pm I went back to my host family.

It was very interesting to learn more about the Judaism and the British school system and culture. I think I’ve improved my English, learned a lot of vocabulary from the little kids and teachers and also got to know how to deal with children and teachers in another country.

The trip to London:

I was very enthusiastic about the trip to London.Impressed by the many great buildings, like the Tower Bridge and the Big Ben, which were more expressive then I thought they would be. We also visited Covent Garden. A paradise for shopping. On the way to the railway station, we passed a film set, looked interested, and what made the whole thing even more interesting was the fact, according to Mrs. Ehemann, that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing there. We were completely excited and freaked out, sadly we had not so much time because we had to reach our train back to Birmingham. Unfortunately, we were only half a day in London, so we got a little insight.

The trip to Stratford upon Avon:

Stratford upon Avon is worth a trip. A pretty little town with very nice old houses. The Shakespeare Theater was also very worth seeing and a picture of how the first theatrical performances took place.

In our free time we once went to a cinema in the film “Manchester by the Sea”, which was nominated for Oscars. The movie was very depressive but it was also interesting to see, how they got along with the dead of a near person. A week later we went bowling what makes great fun.

I enjoyed the time very much and would like to do an internship again.

Leila Eshraghi

On the 27th of March 2017, Yurui Zhang, Rohit Raghavendran and I all travelled to Tudor Grange Academy for the Regional Finals of the German Spelling Bee. After a long journey, and an incredible wait for the event to even start, it was clear from the outset that the journey ahead was to be tough. Nevertheless we all tried our level-best, and we're all proud to represent our school at such an event. After the first round, everyone gathered in the main hall to find out how we did. Sadly, Yurui and Rohit weren't in the final round but after a hard-fought battle, in fourth place….was me! Finally, I’d like to say it was a thoroughly enjoyable event and I’d like everyone that participated, Tudor Grange Academy for hosting the event and Mrs Wells for allowing us to have such an amazing opportunity.

On Wednesday, 15th of March, 18 Year 8 students impatiently waited in the school hall for their German Exchange Students to arrive. It had been a long awaited moment for weeks, and luckily, the bus arrived on time! The first place we all went of course was home, after a day of travelling, every student was tired and ready to settle down for the night. That wasn’t just the Germans! The next day, after making our way to school and letting our exchanges meet each other again, they came to our first lesson, which was History. Unfortunately, the Germans didn’t know much about the English Civil War, and they clearly didn’t understand the causes of the war, written in English, so they struggled, but after this, they were off into the city to discover all of the sights that Birmingham has to offer. On the Friday, we left our exchanges at reception, so they could leave in the morning to go to Coventry and go to some more interesting sights. They seemed to enjoy their time, which was good. After school, we took my exchange student into Birmingham again, so he could do some shopping, before we drove to a party at George Lanham’s house. Over the weekend, we took him to multiple pre-planned places, including Cadbury World and Stratford-Upon-Avon to go and see everything about Shakespeare. The weekend also involved us trying to pack in as many meals which were typically from Birmingham or British, including a curry and fish and chips. On the last full day, my partner went off to Warwick Castle for the day before a relaxed dinner at our house. Tuesday saw us saying bye to our exchange students, waving them off. I’m sure all of us look forward to seeing them again in September when we visit them in Germany. However, in between now and then is a lot of German revision.   

When I was informed about my German exchange partner and viewed his profile page, I was itching to meet him. His name was Majid Bonakdar, came from Frankfurt and also likes swimming. Because I enjoy swimming I thought that we would get along very well. I planned out what we would eat for dinner every evening and what we would do over the weekend.

On Wednesday we finally got to greet each other in person. Although he was two years older than me I was surprised with how we had such a strong acquaintance. However I did notice that he does enjoy to play on his phone, watch YouTube and facetime his friends! He understood that I had homework to complete and left me in peace whilst I needed to concentrate. On Wednesday we had a delectable dish of sausage and mash. Thursday we ate pizza and chicken, Friday we had spaghetti Bolognese and on Monday we went to a pub to dine.

Over the weekend we had a lot of fun. On Saturday we went to Stratford for a walk. When we got there it was near to lunch so we ate some pasties whilst looking at the scenery. Majid noticed a very big house which was special to him and was informed that it was the place where the great Shakespeare was born. Then we walked around the lake, looking at the ducks and swans and found a sweet shop so, we decided to do a bit of shopping. On Sunday, we had friends over as we were celebrating my father’s birthday. Five of us went to our local sports club to play football for about 1 hour then came back home to enjoy a playful fight with nerf guns. I was glad to see that Majid was enjoying himself. Later Majid asked if we had a console and played games for a little while. Pretty much every evening, me and Majid would watch YouTube or play games on our phones.

I would recommend to try the German exchange as you could potentially make a new friend as I have and it is very enjoyable. Also we are still in touch via an app called house party (it seems very popular amongst the Germans).

William Smith

On Thursday 2^nd of March, Year 9 came into school for what promised to be an exciting day. We knew little of what was going to happen, but has been assured by Year 10 it was going to be an engaging and enjoyable time.

In the morning, we were registered in our form rooms and went down into the hall, for an introductory talk on what we were going to do. The year was split into four groups, Mrs Well’s class (German), Mrs Thompson’s (German), Mrs Balkham’s (French) and Mr Renault’s (French). These were chosen on the basis of our preferred language, and which we were more likely to do at GCSE.

The day was kicked off by Sulamaan, an old boy of Camp Hill who had taken German and French GCSE as well as French A-level. For most of period one, Sulamaan gave an inspiring talk on topics such as why we take a language, benefits of it both inside and outside school and overall advice for the future. Seeing this being said by an old boy was especially interesting, as we had heard this from the teachers and outside speakers, but not from anyone who we, as Year 9 pupils, could relate to.

Just before break we were taken to the rooms we would spend most of the day in and given our workshop activity: to design, market, explain and even sing about a cereal that we would introduce to a foreign market, entirely in the target language! During break the whole year were frantically discussing ideas in the playground, such as whether ‘5 Für Dich’ (5 For You), ‘Murtabar’ or ‘Volkornwurst’ (Wheat Sausage), were better names!

On returning back to our rooms, everyone hectically set to work on their campaigns, trying to find rhyming words in German and French and hurriedly translating their pitches. About half an hour before the start of lunch, every group pitched their idea to their class’ teacher, before a winner was chosen from each room. These groups then competed for overall victory against the other winners. In the end ‘Herr Zucker’ (Mr Sugar) cereal won, thanks to an excellent presentation in German and a creative jingle, based on the song ‘Ich heiße Susie’ which many people will remember from Year 7/8 German lessons.

After lunch, we once again met in the hall and were introduced to Olivia, who helps children and young adults make the right choices in their education. She gave an inspiring hour long presentation on how languages can help change your life, and the various opportunities it presented her with, such as a chance to go on a year-long work experience to Mexico City. She also helped us to be positive about ourselves, by doing things that we enjoy and saying ‘I’m still developing my knowledge’ rather than ‘I don’t know’. She was really interesting and helped many of us to understand how languages can really help, not only in school but for the rest of our lives.

Finally, several of the boys in the sixth form gave interesting talks about their home language, teaching spelling, pronunciation and even history, giving us all an eye-opening experience about the different languages spoken by Camp Hill students.

Thank you very much to Sulamaan, Olivia, Jas, Talhah, Firnaaz, Sunil and all of the teachers who helped to plan and run the day so smoothly.

Fintan Hogan (9J)

Hamzah Iqbal (9J)

English Article – Spring 2017

As always, English has had a busy term.

Back in January we invited thirty students from Colmore to attend Poetry and Music workshops run by Ms Buckley and Mr Palmer. The Year 6 students were aided by our Year 8 and 10 students in writing their own poems and practising music from ‘Star Wars’ amongst other pieces.

This then led to our annual successful Poetry and Music evening, which took place in February and which involved not only the students from Colmore, but many of our Year 7 and 8 students showcasing both their poetry and music skills. There were many wonderful performances, but 7J’s performance of ‘Parklife’ was particularly noteworthy – we seem to have many potential stars in the making. I would personally like to thank all the staff involved for all their hard work, but particular thanks go to Mr Palmer, Mr Hill and Ms Buckley.

Ms Buckley has this term continued to run her successful creative writing club, with students being entered for National Short Story Competitions.

This has, as always been a busy term for theatre visits. Year 9 saw an excellent production of Henry V at the Crescent Theatre, which is really informing their understanding of the play this term. They were repeatedly complemented on their behaviour and we even had a member of the public ring Mr Garrod to comment on their politeness! Furthermore, Years 10 and 11 also enjoyed a trip to the Crescent Theatre to see a production of ‘Frankenstein’. This original take on the story looked at events from the monster’s perspective and students were, of course, impeccably behaved.

This term saw an excellent Senior production of Alan Bennett’s masterpiece: ‘The History Boys’ and we have Mr Southworth again to thank for organising that.

Next term promises to be equally busy with trips to the Warner Brothers’ Studios and a Media Day for Year 8 students taking place.

Jo Parmar

House Quiz Report 2017

This year’s house quiz provided more thrills and spills than imaginable. Would Howard hold on to the title or could another House depose them from the quizzing crown. For this year, the format included themed rounds which were known in advance. These themes ranged from motorsport to the periodic table to lego– could the houses select the boys most apt to meet the new challenges?

In the seniors it seemed that the status quo would be maintained with Howard and Seymour winning their initial fixtures. It came down to the final rubber where (without working buzzers) it was Seymour who got one up on their rivals – Thankfully, Mr Hill managed to get to the nub of the buzzer problem… by changing the battery. All ready for the Intermediates at the start of the spring term.

This time it was Howard who came out on top, again it was Seymour who provided the strongest competition. In the final fixture it was Alfie Green’s Blues who won on the buzzers by a single point. This left the competition precariously poised with both Howard and Seymour on five wins each.

In the Juniors, the Seymour team looked strongest on paper and proved a competitive outfit in each of their three fixtures. However, in the first rounds it was Beaufort and Tudor who came out winners – each by a single point. The second week saw Howard and Beaufort win thanks to their superior knowledge of Lego sets and minifigures. This meant that the title would be Howard’s, however Seymour could still gain a share of the top prize if they won out over Howard in the final fixture.

In the final week, the specialist topic of rivers proved to be a bridge too far for some – it was the lowest scoring week of the whole competition. In a surprise outcome, Tudor buzzed themselves to victory over Beaufort to claim a share of the Junior Crown but would Howard be able to make it a three way tie? In the final fixture it meandered from one side to the other, Seymour saw less in the see-saw ‘which sea’ round giving Howard the advantage, then Howard got a prize “nul points” on the pictures of UK Rivers. So it was down to the buzzers. After 16 buzzer questions it was all square on 21 points each. It went down to the tie break – four times!

Car maker in Castle Bromwich? No (Jaguar)

Capital of Chile? No (Santiago, not La Paz Jonathan)

Sea the Danube flows into? No (Black Sea)

What links the kits of Burnley, West Ham and Aston Villa? Matthew Anderson buzzed in with Maroon and Yellow badges, we waited for any further information, none was forthcoming and Alex Newsome of Howard buzzed in to say Claret and Blue colours.

Howard had won after nine weeks, eighteen fixture, ninety rounds by the single point at the very last moment. Commiserations to Seymour, they lost their final four fixtures each by a single point, the last two on tie-breaks. The overall result was:

Tudor 2 wins

Beaufort 4 wins

Seymour 5 wins

Howard 7 wins

Can Harry Wilson come and collect the House Quiz Trophy

The British Mathematical Olympiad Round 1 results arrived as usual just too late for inclusion in last term’s newsletter. This paper is aimed at the top 1000 students as selected by the Senior Maths Challenge, and we had five of those this year. John Hayton (year 12) and Robert Hillier (year 11) did well, and Paul Gardner, Anthony Lim (both year 13) and Sam Stansfield (year 11) did even better, obtaining certificates of distinction. We also had the Senior Kangaroo results, and here, Richard Deutsch, Faraan Cheema, George Phenix and Alex Byrne did well to achieve certificates of merit.

The individual challenge of the term was the Intermediate Challenge. This is also the largest, with about 300 entries, so the logistics of the morning had to be handled with military precision. This was done, and the papers sent off: when the results arrived, the boys had achieved 84 gold certificates, 110 silvers and 63 bronzes. Thirteen boys did extremely well, all qualifying for the three follow-up Intermediate Mathematical Olympiads, and in addition an astonishing 81 boys, including about one-third of Year 9, qualified for one of two colours of kangaroo. As is frequently said in these articles, we await the results with interest.

On Thursday 30^th March, we were visited by a film crew from the MEI, who recorded our efforts to use technology in our teaching of various Year 12 classes. I don’t think the results will be broadcast in peak time, but it was a fun experience.

There were three Team Challenge experiences. The senior team’s adventure in London is described below by Anthony Lim.

On Tuesday 7th February, Camp Hill's First IV Mathematics Team, consisting of Anthony Lim and Paul Gardner of year 13, John Hayton of year 12, and Robert Hillier of year 11 travelled to London with Mr Thompson for the National Final of the UKMT Senior Team Maths Challenge. The first round was a poster competition, and the team had brought with them pre-prepared materials for this year's specialist topic, Cellular Automata. The team also had to work on some questions on the day, concerning lightbulbs being switched on and off, and managed to create a respectable poster.

There then followed the usual rounds of a group round, a cross-number and a shuttle round, as well as the new addition for the Senior Challenge of a relay round (which went surprisingly smoothly considering it consisted of a load of 16-18 year olds running around in a room full of tables and trip hazards). The team started the main competition optimistically, getting 90% of the marks in the first two rounds. The shuttle and relay rounds were slightly less successful, but the team persevered, and spirits remained high for the duration of what was a very enjoyable event.

Overall, the team performed resiliently throughout, and even managed to get a few marks along the way, finishing in the top half of 88 teams. This is a result which, considering the standard of the other teams, the team should be proud of. Thanks must go to Mr Thompson for running lunchtime preparation sessions, taking and supervising the team on the trip to London, and most importantly, buying the cookies for the way back!

This was swiftly followed by the Year 10 Maths Feast, described below by Proshanto Chanda.

On Thursday 9th February two teams of four year ten boys, comprised of Xue Bang Chen, Kevin Mathew, Saksham Shah, Proshanto Chanda, Judah Daniels, Bhuvan Mahadevaiah, Tommy Ransbotyn and Leon Zhang travelled to Hillcrest School to take part in the Maths Feast. Sadly this had nothing to do with food, but was a team maths challenge comprised of four rounds: a group round, where the teams worked together in their fours to solve maths questions; a shuttle round, where the teams were split into pairs that had to answer different questions that linked to each other; a true/false round, where the teams had to read various statements about a problem and work out whether they were true or false; an information round, where the teams were given three minutes to read a sheet filled with information about a topic, then they were given seventeen minutes to answer questions on the topic.

There were also bonus countdown rounds (which neither team performed very well on), where the teams had to work out how to create a large number using basic operands and smaller numbers, like the popular gameshow Countdown.

The competition was hotly contested throughout, but the boys kept going on and soon the competition was over. There was a nervous wait for the final results, as the boys knew that it would be very close between the top three. The results were as follows:

In third place - Camp Hill Boys B Team

In second place - Bishop Walsh Catholic School

In first place - Camp Hill Boys A Team.

And the Junior Team Challenge is described below by Kevin Xu and Punith Premachandra.

On Tuesday 7th March, two teams from Camp Hill along with teams from 24 other schools took part in the UKMT Junior Team Maths Challenge, hosted here at Camp Hill. The first team was composed of Kevin Xu, Ben Hobson-Taher, Hemal Aggarwal and Peter Kippax and the second team was Qiyuan Chen, Punith Premachandra, Deniz Yoruk-Mikhailov and Elliot Robbie. For the past ten lunchtimes or so, we had done our best to prepare, and felt we could beat the competition.

On the day, one team withdrew, allowing our second team to fill the space. There would be 4 rounds with questions testing our skills in all areas of maths.

Round one was the group round, where ten questions had to be answered in 45 minutes. We chose to divide and conquer, and it worked, to an extent. We managed to score 54 out of 60, a respectable score.

The second round was the cross number. Exactly as the name suggests, it was a crossword, using numbers instead of letters. We were divided into pairs – one pair had the down clues while the other had the across ones, and no communication was allowed except to ask the other pair to work on a question. Furthermore, many of the clues required other answers in order to be fully completed. Although it sounds confusing, we battled through this round well, scoring 52 out of a maximum 56 points.

After a short lunch break, we had the shuttle round. It comprised of 4 mini ‘shuttles’ – a set of 4 questions where each question needed the previous answer to complete it. This round also offered bonus points for speed, which we had been exceptional at in previous rounds. We made no errors until the last shuttle, where we lost twelve marks, but still managed to score a decent 48 points out of 60.

Finally, there was the relay – 30 questions to answer, 45 minutes to answer them in and utter chaos. We knew we needed to do our best if we were to win, and we got 48 out of 60 points, the highest of all the teams. This made our final score 202.

At the end, the top three teams were announced. Third: Camp Hill Girls. Second: Bishop Vesey’s. All was left was to find out who was first. Would it be us? We waited eagerly to hear the name of the winning team. It was… King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys!

However, we later found out that in reality it was the Camp Hill B team who had come 1st, and had beaten the A team, but since they unfortunately were not officially entered into the competition, they could not be declared the winners. To conclude, we all thoroughly enjoyed the day and were very pleased with the outcome.

A.M.R., Anthony, Proshanto, Kevin and Punith

Every few years we organise a trip to the National Museum of Computing, at Bletchley Park. This year the trip was a combined one, with 22 girls and 26 boys, split into groups to cover three different activities. The first time we took a group the museum was little more than a pile of bits, but now there are lots of working exhibits in place, showing not just how computers have evolved but also how they work. One for the older staff is the (fascinating for some?) national slide rule collection…

The Harwell Dekatron computer to the left is known as the WITCH and is unusual in that it stores information in base ten, rather than the binary now commonly used. It is the oldest working digital computer in the world (from 1951).

Everybody has heard of the German Enigma machine, but cracking that was simple compared to this Lorenz. It has 10¹⁵¹ pin settings. Amazingly, the cryptographers managed to figure out how it worked 3 years before they ever saw one!

The highlight for me, as ever, was watching a group of Y10 learning what computers used to be like by trying to copy a program to play ‘snake’ into BBC ‘B’ computers. The horror when they realise that they can’t simply use the arrow keys to scroll up and correct a mistake is quite amusing to those of us who grew up with such things!

I’d like to thank the staff from both schools who came with us, and apologise to Y10 about the rather hot coach trip back….

N. Frost.

TCS Challenge

Last term all boys studying Computing entered the Bebras Challenge, an online logical thinking competition. The top 10% of competitors nationally were recently invited to take part in the TCS Oxford Computing Challenge, a much more difficult competition based on programming.

Particular recognition needs to go to Kevin Mathew who was joint first in the country for his age group with a very impressive score! The TCS Challenge was quite challenging, reflected by low average scores nationally, so well done to all those who gave it a go.

L.Pearcey