Recently, Marden students were entered into the Perse School programming competition. Two of our Year 11 students, Aidan and Jonah, have placed in the top 20% of all entries in the country at the advanced level in the first round.

After speaking with the organisers, they were genuinely impressed by this achievement—especially considering it was their first time entering the competition—and they extended their congratulations to both students.

In addition to their success, we had six other strong entries from our Year 10 and Year 11 students, who also performed very well and demonstrated great problem-solving skills and creativity throughout the competition.

This year the competition was divided into two levels, navigator (entry level to moderate) and pathfinder (advanced) and as it was the first year of the competition being run in this way, the problems were much more difficult than previous years. All students except one in Year 10 and 11 sat the pathfinder level of the competition and all did incredibly well considering the difficulty of the problem set.

Aidan and Jonah will be moving on to the second and final round after half term, joining forces with Benedict from Year 10 to compete as a three-man team.

Well done to all involved!