Cipher Challenge winners announced

The winning team for the 11th Cipher Challenge has been named as City of London School. They will win a £1,000 prize from GCHQ. Other runner up prizes, with support from GCHQ and commercial partners, included The IBM Prize of £800 to Sir Roger Manwood’s School and The Trinity College prize of £700 to King Edward VII School, Sheffield.

The competition, coordinated by Head of Maths, Professor Graham Niblo and aimed at secondary school pupils, ran over two months with a series of codebreaking challenges over the internet. These increased in difficulty as the competition drew to a close.

An astonishing 6,268 pupils participated from 725 schools. Although the competition is only open to British schools, there were still schools from around the globe eager to take part, from Florida to Tokyo.

The competition was officially launched in October by Foreign Secretary William Hague at codebreaking museum Bletchley Park as part of a series of initiatives aimed at getting young people involved in maths and computer science.
Bletchley Park will also host the award ceremony in April which gives prize winners an opportunity to learn more about the history of codebreaking as well as meet other teams.

For full details of winners visit the Cipher Challenge website here