Stanger Manor Primary School has earned global recognition after being crowned world champions at the Tangible Africa Coding World Cup on September 30.

The school’s Grade 7 team won both the junior primary division and overall prize against more than 340 school teams from 30 countries across five continents. Stanger Manor Secondary School’s Grade 8 team also delivered a fantastic finish, claiming the secondary school division and second overall behind their junior counterparts.

Stanger Manor Secondary School’s Grade 9 were the final local top-10 finishers, earning the sixth overall position. The Tangible Africa tournament began with more than 100 teams competing nationally. Six teams advanced to the provincial level and four teams from the iLembe district made it to nationals. Stanger Manor Primary placed first nationally in the primary schools category, while Stanger Manor Secondary took second and third. Mbekamuzi Secondary secured third in their division.

The Tangible Africa competition uses physical, customised coding tokens and a companion mobile app to teach programming in an interactive and accessible way. Games such as Tanks, Rangers, Juicy Gems and CodeCup Football Champions form part of this hands-on learning platform. Each set includes 31 tokens, which pupils arrange on a grid to represent commands.

They then photograph their sequence using a mobile device and the app employs image recognition to interpret and execute the ‘code’. This process allows pupils to see their physical code come to life on screen. Stanger Manor Primary School principal Anil Narain said he was thrilled with the win.

“My pupils have done the school, the district of iLembe and indeed South Africa proud,” he said.

iLembe coding convenor Dr Mogambal Moonsamy said the achievement reflected the district’s growing reputation for innovation.

“We celebrate this as a milestone in fostering a culture of innovation, problem-solving and creativity,” said Moonsamy.

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