Coding Perfect Scores

30 Roseville College students have achieved Perfect Scores in GROK Learning’s NCSS Coding Challenge and Web.Comp, with many more students in Years 5–9 securing High Distinctions and Distinctions in the two competitions.

In the GROK NCSS Challenge, 24 Roseville College students placed top in the leaderboard of world-wide entries with Perfect Scores, and of these, seven students achieved Perfect Scores in two categories: Beginners and Intermediate.

“Learning to code equips girls to apply mathematical reasoning in a variety of new situations. It allows them to systematically break down each challenge to create a solution using code, and the girls enjoy the experience of using technology as a creative tool,” explains Ms Fiona Jostons, a Senior Mathematics teacher who integrated the NCSS Challenge into her Year 7 maths program.

Year 8 student, Rhea Jayaram, achieved a Perfect Score in both the Beginners and Intermediate categories of the NCSS Challenge and says she relished the opportunity to go beyond the curriculum to learn more about coding.

“I really liked doing something that was outside the curriculum and, most of all, I liked the challenges that combined art and mathematics, which allowed me to experiment with my creativity through code,” she says.

Kayley Tsui, Year 9, surprised herself by achieving a Perfect Score in the Intermediate category of the NCSS Challenge, a Perfect Score in both the Beginners and Intermediate categories of Web.comp, and a Distinction in the Web.comp Advanced category, adding that before the task she knew how to code in Python, but “now knows what each statement means and how they function, which helps a lot when I code now.”

The five-week NCSS Challenge is a collaboration between Grok Learning, The University of Sydney and the Australian Computing Academy. More than 17,000 students from around the world participated in the NCSS Challenge. They learnt to code by solving interesting and engaging problems.