With 17 prizewinners, Saarpfalz-Gymnasium received the gold award BwInf-Schule 2023/2024 in the national competition for computer science. It is also the only school in Saarland to receive honours in this national competition, which is sponsored by the German Informatics Society.
"The mixture of pupils interested in computer science and committed teachers is a great success," emphasised headmistress Katja Grauvogel during the welcome speech at the computer science award ceremony, which took place in the school's auditorium. Together with District Administrator Dr Theophil Gallo and the supervising teachers, she presented the certificates to the pupils, which included four first places and a special prize.
And indeed, teacher and supervisor Michael Bergau and his colleagues know how to get their pupils enthusiastic about computer science. In addition to the national competition, they were able to motivate a total of 262 pupils from Saarpfalz-Gymnasium to take part in the Informatik-Biber, a Europe-wide online competition for classes from 3 to 13. This resulted in 55 prizewinners, including three first places. Certificates were also awarded for this outstanding achievement. District Administrator Dr Theophil Gallo was very impressed and thanked the headmistress, teachers and pupils of Saarpfalz-Gymnasium for their commitment: "This makes me very proud as District Administrator. I would love to be a pupil there again."
Background: Saarpfalz-Gymnasium has been a model school for computer science since 2004. It all started with a minor subject in year 8, at that time without a curriculum. Computer science was then introduced as a main subject in 2005 and is now a compulsory subject. Since 2009, it has even been possible to study it early. Currently, 37 pupils from grades 9 to 12 take advantage of this offer.