Year 8 students took part in a challenging coding session, to learn how to decipher code and the history behind it.

Lucie, Lily and Erin from tutor 8-1, said: “Some of the main ciphers we learnt about were T9, Morse code, pigpen, Polybius Square, Atbash and Caesar shift.”

“The ones we found most interesting were Atbash and Polybius Square. They helped us to understand the work that went into creating the Enigma machine used in WWII. We had to decipher all of the codes to get letters to create the name of a famous mathematician – Alan Turing!”

“We found it all fascinating because it is not something we normally do. Some ciphers were very new so we felt we had learnt a lot and had to think hard about it all. We recommend this type of activity to anyone interested in mathematics, computing and languages. We enjoyed it very much!”