Whitworth students aim for place in final of national cyber competition

Students from Whitworth Community High School bidding for a place in the national CyberFirst Girls’ Competition

Cyber-students are honing their coding skills and knowledge hoping to take on the best in the country in a national competition.

Whitworth Community High School students in Year 8 are attending after school sessions and working at home on coding challenges.

The CyberFirst Girls’ Competition was set up by GCHQ's National Cyber Security Centre to promote the world of cyberspace as a potential future career for female students.

In previous years, the school has won through to the semi-final and those successful students are now in Year 10 and are sharing their experience with this year’s hopefuls.

Four teams are vying for a place – the Ninja Turtles, Swaggy Sisters, The Swagsters and Crackers. A leadership board shows the Swaggy Sisters are currently ahead.

Grace Schofield-South, 12, said: “We are doing different activities around cryptography, networking and computer science in preparation for the competition.

“I find the whole thing really interesting because it is not just one topic, you learn about lots of different things and as a team you can merge your ideas to come up with an answer, so it helps you socially.”

Bronagh Jones, 13, is in team Ninja Turtles. She said: “There are different things you have to do including decoding on the Cyber Chef website. I like being able to learn new things and it helps to build bonds and friendships.”

Swaggy Sisters team member Ella Leach, 12, said she would love to work for NASA.

She said: “I enjoy working with people that I know and doing something that I love and IT is something that I am keen on as a possible career choice.”

The Whitworth teams are currently competing in online qualifying rounds hoping to be among the top teams to get a place in one of 13 English regional finals planned for February next year.