CURRICULUM// ICT & BYTE CLUB
ICT VISIT
SAINSBURYS
Despite to snowy conditions, Mrs
Alexander and the 5th year ICT
pupils made their way over to the
local Sainsbury’s to gain an in-depth
look at how technology is used in the
supermarket. From the checkouts and
deliveries to stock control and their new
“Click and Collect” system, technology
is clearly an integral part of how they
run a successful store in the modern
age. We are always appreciative of them
allowing us to see this first hand and the
pupils can apply this knowledge to their
written examinations in the summer
with some real-life examples.
H.Alexander
Head of ICT and Computing
George Winter (3rd Yr); Eddie Hasdell
(4th Yr); Ben Wilkinson (4th Yr).
Manique Wilson, Computing teacher,
said: “We like to stretch and challenge
our students in Computer Science at
Pocklington School and the teams have
certainly learned a great deal by taking
part in the Perse Challenge. Judging
by their faces, they found it a super
experience.”
BYTE CLUB BOYS
IN CODING
CHALLENGE
Gifted and talented computer scientists
represented Pocklington School in
The Perse Coding Team Challenge, a
national competition to find the UK’s top
school programming team.
The Second, Third and Fourth Year
students, all members of our Byte Club,
competed in two teams of four in a timed
one-hour coding challenge under strict
exam conditions.
The teams were: Pock A - Henry Hudson
(2nd Yr); Zac Stewart (2nd Yr); Harry
Chacksfield (3rd Yr); Ewan Robson (3rd
Yr). Pock B - Kai Swanborough (2nd Yr);
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THE POCKLINGTONIAN
The students have been working hard
during Byte Club to code in Python
and VB.Net to create solutions to some
demanding questions. The club is ably
supported by U6 Computer Science
student Cubby Wilson, who has devised
many a challenge to test their coding skill.
Mrs Wilson said: “There is a great
camaraderie amongst the boys who all
seem very intent to make Computer
Science a key subject in their future
option choices. There is a real buzz
when a piece of code produces the exact,
desired result and we often hear the
“YES” moment in the lab!”
The teams await the results of the
competition, organised by The Perse
School, Cambridge. Teams are competing
to win the Braben Cup which is sponsored
by Dr David Braben , game developer
and founder of Frontier Developments.
The Perse Coding Team Challenge
offers progressively harder questions. If
you are intrigued, then take a look at a
basic Level 1 challenge:
Perfect Cipher
Jemima tries to develop a cipher, which
would be very difficult to decode. She
finally has an idea! If she substitutes
every letter of the message with ‘E’
(the most common letter in the English
language), she is sure nobody will be able
to decipher it!
INPUT: A single word
OUTPUT: Output the message
encoded using Jemima’s cipher
EXAMPLE INPUT: PERSECODING
EXAMPLE OUTPUT:
EEEEEEEEEEE
Hint from Cubby: “This is easy. The
solution is only 2 lines long and you need
to use the len function in Python!”