PUPILS from Usk Church in Wales Primary School won thousands of pounds worth of IT equipment last week (Tuesday 28 November) in the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s (DVLA) national coding competition.

Five teams from schools across Wales were shortlisted to win one of five top prizes in the DVLA Code Challenge, which invited seven to 11 year olds in Wales to work in teams of up to five to design and build a computer game from scratch.

The teams were also asked produce a three minute video describing what their game is about and how they made it.

BBC’s Lucy Owen announced that Usk Church in Wales Primary School was the overall winner of the competition at a gala prize day held at DVLA’s digital theatre in Swansea.

The team took away around £3,000 worth of the latest IT kit for use in their school.

Usk Church in Wales Primary School was voted the overall winner by the pupils who attended the event and those who took part in the live video link from from across Wales.

While there were five judges waiting to make the final decision in the event of a tie there was a clear winner on the day. 

The judges were DVLA Chief Executive Oliver Morley, Professor Faron Moller (head of computer science at Swansea University), leader of Swansea Council Rob Stewart, STEM ambassador coordinator for Wales Sian Ashton and DVLA chief technology officer Dave Perry.

DVLA chief executive Oliver Morley said:“Congratulations to Usk Church in Wales Primary School on winning the competition today. Every team can be proud of what they have achieved.

“We’ve been thrilled with the standard of entries to the competition and it shows how much IT talent we have here in Wales.

 “While the competition has now ended, we will continue to encourage young people to have a passion for computer programming as this will benefit both them and employers in Wales who increasingly look for these skills.”