The NCSS Challenge is an online programming competition run by the University of Sydney. The competition runs for 5 weeks in Term 3 starting on August 5th and teaches students how to program as they compete. In 2012 over 4200 high school students (and some primary school students) and 350 teachers competed in the Challenge from over 300 different schools across Australia and New Zealand.

Each week, a set of notes for either in-class or self-directed learning is distributed to participants via email and online. A set of challenge questions testing this material is also released. The questions range in difficulty to allow beginners to progress at their own rate while still extending gifted students. The challenges will increase in complexity as more and more programming concepts are covered over the 5 weeks.

Students submit answers to these questions, which are automatically marked using a series of test cases that are designed to help guide the student to a working solution. A full set of correct solutions, hints and commentary about each question are released at the end of each week. Video lectures and walk-throughs of some questions will also be available.

Magis Maths Club 24 June

Is Morality a Matter of Moral Reasoning or a Matter of Evolution?

Professor Tziporah Kasachkoff

Each year Hale School in Perth invites a professional philosopher to spend a week with us speaking to students, staff, parents and the broarder community.

Tziporah Kasachkoff is our 2013 Philosopher in Residence. She is currently the Professor Emerita, of social science at the City University of New York and lectures at Ben Gurion University, Israel, Department of Philosophy. She lives for 6 months each year in New York and six months each year in Jerusalem Israel. She is the editor of The American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Teaching Philosophy. She is the author of numerous books including Teaching Philosophy: Pedagogical Insights and Practical Suggestions, Morality and Public Policy, In the Socratic Tradition: Essays on Teaching Philosophy.

The Topic will be - "The relevance of empirical findings to our understanding of moral judgments, particularly claims that evolution has determined us to respond in certain ways to particular triggers in our environment and that the role of "reasoning" in moral judgment may be much less than we tend to think."

When: Wednesday 24th July
Time: 7.30pm - 9pm
Where: Hale School Function Room (Admin building).