We're celebrating success in this year’s BEBRAS competition, a nationwide competition that tests students’ ability to solve problems using computational thinking.

We entered an incredible 160 girls from the Junior and Senior school, 26 of whom were placed in the top 10% nationally! Four girls; Year 7’s Eloisa Lunn and Amber Drew, and Year 6’s Evie Campbell and Olwen Knight in the Junior School went on to compete in the second round last week and all achieved distinctions, placing them in the top 2.5% in the country. Olwen was awarded the further accolade of qualifying for the national finals, she is one of only 20 pupils nationally to do so.

This is a fantastic achievement for Olwen and is a testament to the commitment of staff here at the Royal High School in encouraging careers in computing at a time when only 10% of pupils taking A-Level Computing are girls.

We're proud to be turning statistics around with a real surge of girls at the school pursuing Computer Science and related degree programmes; it is one of the fastest growing GCSE subjects at the school. Actively encouraging more than simply the pursuit of qualifications, Head of Computer Science and ICT Mrs Lycett, and Computer Lead in the Junior School Mrs Drew work together to provide a dynamic and creative computing curriculum from 3-18. Mrs Lycett said "the girls’ engagement is superb, they show resilience and determination to the subject".

Other notable achievements were Martha Frank, Gemma Woodward, Alice Watkinson and Mya Harvey in Year 7 and in Year 10 Marigold Whitaker, Katie Riccio, Summer Cox, Sofia Kover-Wolf and Emily Bleakley – putting them in the top 5% nationally.