EXMOOR schools have come out tops again in the annual Kodu Cup competition.

A team of three children from the Exmoor Coast Federation were the Judge’s Choice of the 2015 Microsoft Kodu Cup champions, a competition organised by Microsoft to design, build and present their own video game.

The three pupils, Solveiga Neverauskaite from Minehead Middle School, Izaac Coley from St Dubricius First School, Porlock and Connie Branagan from St Michael’s First School beat nine other teams to clinch the title at Microsoft UK’s HQ in Reading.

Mrs Siobhan Morgan, Head of ICT at Minehead Middle School, said: “The three pupils were all wonderful and represented the schools fantastically. They were a delight to take and seemed to really enjoy the day. Rather than in previous years, where the children have had to present in front of all the competitors, this year was much more sociable.

"They set up their game and merchandise on their table and were visited by judges, other teams and people working at Microsoft. The Head of Education at Microsoft was very impressed with how well they worked as a team and explained their ideas, considering how young they all were.”

The Kodu Cup was launched three years ago in the UK and is open to children aged from 7-14. It was introduced by Microsoft to help bring computer programming back into the classroom and uses their Kodu Game Creation software.

The Exmoor Coast Federation has entered a team every year (and their Gryphon Games team were crowned Primary Champions last year) as part of its transition activities between the first schools (Minehead, Dunster, Timberscombe, Cutcombe, St Dubricius and St Michael’s First Schools) and Minehead Middle School.

The three Turtle Games team members have each won an Xbox, a copy of Minecraft and award plaques to be displayed in each of their schools.