Tag: IT

I am delighted to share the winners of the CyberFirst Girls Competition in Wales have been announced, and I am incredibly proud to confirm that our learners placed 4th overall in Wales, securing a position within the top ten schools nationally. This is a fantastic achievement and a real testament to the dedication, resilience, and teamwork shown by all learners involved.

28 Year 8 learners, working in teams of four, competed against schools across Wales in a series of demanding computational thinking challenges. These tasks spanned a wide range of cyber security concepts, including cryptography, logic, artificial intelligence, and networking, all for the chance to be crowned cyber security champions.

As a collective, the learners completed challenges worth between 5 and 200 points, depending on difficulty, achieving an impressive overall score of over 10,000, over 3000 more than last year, that placed them 4th in Wales, showing a massive step up in the competition this year. This score and result reflects the outstanding effort, problem-solving skills, and commitment shown by every participant, not just those at the top of the leaderboard.

As recognition of this success, the four learners who achieved the highest scores will be invited to attend a further celebration day at Celtic Manor, where they will meet cyber professionals and attend an evening Gala Awards event, including a three-course meal and formal celebration evening. 

In addition, our learners have been invited to attend a celebratory event hosted by CyberFirst Wales at ICC Wales, Newport, on 23rd March 2026, which will include:

• A live final challenge
• Attendance at the Women in Cyber Conference, where learners will hear inspiring talks and meet female role models working within the cyber industry
• A celebration buffet and party
• A certificate-awarding ceremony

Further details will follow at the start of 2026. For now, we wanted to take this opportunity to celebrate the amazing work of all learners by having a celebration and award celebration, which was a great success.  Thank you to Mr Jones and Mr Rae for attending and presenting the awards. 

Our Year 7 students were fully immersed in an exciting CyberFirst Enigma Room event, where they stepped into the shoes of wartime codebreakers at Bletchley Park such as Alan Turning. As part of the mission, learners took on the role of intelligence agents working to protect British ships from German U-boat ambushes during World War II.

Bletchley Park, the historic heart of British codebreaking efforts, played a crucial role in the Allied victory by cracking encrypted enemy communications, most famously those using the German Enigma machine. It’s also regarded as the birthplace of modern computing, thanks to pioneering technologies like the Bombe and Colossus.

In this challenge, students used CyberChef.io, a real-world encryption and decryption tool, to crack Morse code and Enigma-style ciphers. Their task? Track down hidden submarines and prevent attacks, all under the pressure of time and competition. The event sparked curiosity, collaboration, and problem-solving across all classes, with 1st to 3rd place prizes awarded in each group. Judging by their enthusiasm and skill, we may already have some future cyber analysts in Year 7!