The year 3 and 4 students at the Narrabundah school came first in the National Computer Science School Competition 2017, beating 20,000 students from around the world.

The competition, which saw students use their coding skills to solve various challenges, took place over five weeks, with St Benedict’s achieving a perfect score.

Teacher Melanie Stratford said it’s the first time the school has taken part in the competition.

“There were lots of different challenges and they became gradually more difficult as it went on,” she said.

“In some challenges they had to do things like input code in order so the computer could draw a flower.”

The school has regularly been running an after school coding club for 30 students this year, and Ms Stratford those skills can be applied to many other subjects in the classroom.

“It has a whole lot to do with mathematics and there’s a lot to do with angles as well,” she said.

As part of the challenges, students taking part solved problems using a coding language called Python.

Ms Stratford said despite the fact coding may seem complicated, it was very accessible.

“At this stage, there are some students that are still developing their reading skills, so the program is able to narrate things to the students and let them know if they made an error,” she said.

“It’s all about them being able to work at their own pace.” For many of the students taking part, the classroom wasn’t the only place they coded.

“I sometimes go home and code games,” year 4 student Riley Wilson said. “I also do some on iPad and code games as well,” fellow year 3 student Sarah Daunt said.

Year 3 student Emily Stratford said the whole class was excited by the school’s win. "We all felt very proud,” she said.

The school is looking to take part in the challenge again next year, and student Chris Buckland said there’s many opportunities for people to code in the future.

“You can use it if you wanted to make an app or a game,” he said.