Junior School girls win Distinction and Merit awards in the Bebras Coding Challenge 2026

Following the outstanding successes of our girls in Years 2-6 in the ‘Bebras Computational Thinking Challenge 2025’ in November, twenty-three of our Year 5 and 6 girls (those in the top 10% nationally) progressed to participate in the online ‘Bebras Coding Challenge 2026’

This invitation-only event challenges talented UK students to produce fully programmed solutions to coding problems within strict time constraints.

The Challenge took place in early March and the official results have just been released. Mr Severy, the girls' specialist Computer Science Coordinator, takes great pride in helping them realise their potential. He said:

"We are delighted to announce that six of our girls have been presented with a ‘Distinction Award’ and a further 10 have received a ‘Merit Award’. This is an extremely impressive achievement given that there is no upper age limit for these categories, meaning our students may have been competing against much older students."

Nationally, 48,998 students participated in the ‘Novices’ category and 15,194 students participated in the ‘Explorers’ category, with between 7% (Novices) and 33% (Explorers) of entrants across the country in these age categories scoring zero points, reflecting the significant difficulty of these challenges.

Special congratulations to Juliette L. and Isla H. for achieving the ‘Best In School’ awards for their respective age categories at St. Mary’s.

"Once again, the girls have demonstrated their resilience, perseverance, and enthusiasm by competing under pressure at the highest level. All of their hard work in preparing for the competition really did pay off and they should be extremely proud of what they have achieved."

April 2026