Several students from Harrow Way have made a fantastic start to the 2007 National Cipher Challenge. After the first week of cipher breaking Ryan Howells, Charlie Walsh, Catherine Upfold, Billy Crockford, Elesha Redstone, Paige Brown, Rhys Lawton, Alex Jones, Anna-Leigh Brookes and Abbie Portsmouth were all ranked equal first in the country, along with students from a handful of other schools.
This is no mean feat as several of the students are entering the competition for the first time. Under the tutelage of Mr Mountain, in the after school club, the Harrow Way students learn about different kinds of ciphers and how to crack them before applying themselves to the weekly challenges in the University of Southampton’s national competition.
By the end of this term the students will hopefully have cracked a total of 16 ciphers, which gradually increase in difficulty, with the aim of winning either a laptop computer or a £1000 in prize money.