News

The National Cipher Challenge has been run by the University of Southampton Mathematics Department since 2002 and has attracted a wide following. Cabinet ministers, media scientists, journalists, authors and actors are just some of the fans of this competition. It is a code breaking competition written for UK secondary school and 6th Form students of Mathematics and Computer Science, but it has always had a wide following among teachers and parents and across a range of age groups. It also attracts a small number of international competitors.

We are delighted to announce that this year, a team representing Nower Hill High School, led by Nathaniel, Nikhil and Rego Kakas were selected as the winners of the University of Southampton prize in this year’s National Cipher Challenge. The prize committee was very impressed by their submission and they were invited to attend a prize giving ceremony at Bletchley Park on Tuesday 7th February to receive their award, which included a cheque to the value of £1,000.

You may also notice from the leaderboard pictured that all of the other winners were from private or selective schools, with Nower Hill being the only good old comprehensive school represented!

The students were offered a private tour of Bletchley Park, which was once the top-secret home of the World War Two codebreakers, followed by talks by leading Mathematicians such as Professor Kit Yates. There was also an opportunity to meet delegates from sponsors of the competition such as GCHQ, IBM and Netcraft.

A truly fierce competition, we would like to wholeheartedly congratulate Nikhil, Nathaniel and Rego for their success in the competition and inspiring other students at the school to participate in the competition in the years to come.