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06 February 2023

Cyber-First Girls best extracurricular activity of the year?

John Palmer profile image
Written by

John Palmer | Senior Hub Lead / Lead Practitioner

We ran three Chase “Cyber First Girls” teams and their performance in the national GCHQ competition in November was very creditable indeed – although we unfortunately did not get through to the next round the girls spent a VERY enjoyable week solving problems, cracking codes and finding out lots about networks and coding.

CyberFirst Girls Competition is an opportunity to learn something new about cyber security and covers advanced cyber topics that are not covered in traditional education but seek to stretch the lateral thinking and additional cyber knowledge of the teams.

The students who took part (not their real names) were gingerbreadcat, littleduck, nestlemilk, embuf, chickennugget, sarahwilliams, froglet, tinkerbell, tootamus, ladybird, purplesaladgirl (they will know who they are!)

Cybersecurity is a growing area for careers and has two key advantages: very low to no unemployment and very generous salaries! You'll never be bored as new puzzles need to be solved, and you can always be proud because your work will have a positive impact on the digital and physical world.

If you have girls that you are trying to encourage to look at Computing as a subject, I do recommend this programme - really useful and highly enjoyable.

Discussion

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Sarah Zaman
06/02/2023 23:29

Following on from this, for Year 9 girls and older, CyberFirst run Girls Development days across the country.
More information here

There is a North East one on the 4th March in Sunderland