Cyber Schools Hubs Newsletter December

Cyber Pi's NCSC have been working with CSA, who in turn have been working with Wyedean to develop the next batch of 12 Cyber Pi projects. Wyedean have worked with CSA on developing the student and teacher guide format to make it more useful. There are now 24 Cyber Pi projects available for teachers within the project to experiment with and work with their students on. NCSC have purchased 15 individual Cyber Pi dropcrates, in addition to 5 specific individual teacher Cyber Pi cates (with additional literature to support teachers). NCSC have also purchased the first classroom Cyber Pi dropcrate (containing 15 sets). All dropcrates are available for booking on the https://cyberhub.uk website. All the student and teacher guides for the Cyber Pi's can be found on the https://cyberpiprojects.com website (accounts/password details to access the projects are available in the dropcrates). NCSC will be purchasing further Cyber Pi kits in the New Year in addition to commissioning 12 IOT related Cyber Pi projects.

CyberDEA CSA have been developing a new experience for students in the project. CyberDea is based on the bottom floor of one of the CSA buildings in Quedgeley and is where students can visit to get a day’s Cyber Experience (including time with the Cyber Pi projects, time on the Cyber Range learning about network security from a defender/attacker perspective and time in the Cyber VR system).

Work Experience We have been working with various industry supporters of the project to explore developing more opportunities for work experience for students who are interested in Computer Science/Cyber security related careers. If schools could let us know what their requirements are we can see what can be achieved. Having a flexible time for work placements and selecting appropriate students will help us increase the number of placements. Companies like CSA, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman are expanding the numbers of students that they can accommodate.

Primary School Trial and engagement in the project Within the project we have started a focused Primary School Trial based around Beaufort Co-operative Academy outreach being run running afterschool clubs in its feeder schools. In addition Cleeve and Wyedean schools are doing some specific outreach concepts with their feeder primary schools. The project has engaged with the lecturers of Primary PGCE Computer Science at University for support and ideas on how we can develop classroom technology to support Primary School students interest in Computer Science. We are in the process of developing Primary School specific teacher crates containing one of each item of technology for teachers to experiment with and get familiar. In addition, based on feedback we have already purchased and put live on the https://cyberhub.uk website for booking the following crates:

• 2 Crates of Crumbles (15 sets in each) • 2 Crates of Kano's (15 sets in each) • 1 Crate of Blue Bots (18 sets)

• 3 crates of Pro Bots (6 sets in each) More Primary School dropcrates are being purchased via Beaufort. In addition, there are the following dropcrates that are suitable for Primary Schools in addition to Secondary Schools: • 4 Crates of Sphero's (12 in each) - supporting crates of Ipads can also be booked • 7 Crates of Ohbots (15 in each) • 19 crates of Micro:bit Moves (12 in each) • 6 Crates of Pi-Top Ceeds (15 in each) - (7 more crates are currently being configured) NCSC attended a CAS event for Primary School Computer Science teachers hosted by Gloucestershire Uni, where some of the technology was showcased (with great interest shown). Further CAS events will also be supported, getting in some of the vendors we have involved with the project to provide some teacher CPD on their tech.

eMentoring for Computer Science Students Northrop Grumman in partnership with the GFirst LEP educational office and are piloting a concept of e-mentoring by industry supporters of hand-picked students. To begin with 5 Northrop Grumman members of staff will mentor 5 Cleeve School Computer Science students. The bulk of the mentoring will be undertaken over electronic means (Skype/email etc) although some face2face sessions will be held. The idea originally came following the Dragon's Den event held at Wyedean, with Wydean suggesting the concept to the Dragons involved, and then following up by developing some guidelines with the schools DSL that Wydean has shared with other schools. Deep3 are also looking to e-mentor students at along with Lockheed Martin looking to do something with Beaufort, while other schools/companies are considering similar partnerships.

Inspiration! Inspiring students and teachers and raising aspirations has been a key concept from the beginning of the CSH project. To date this has been a combination of fully funded (teacher cover, transport costs, meals and entrance fees) trips for students to either Computing related educational establishments (such as TNMOC), hosted visits by our Industry supporters (Bank of England, Fujitsu SOC), attendance at technology expositions and events run at schools with industry supporters either running educational activities (full days/half days/club sessions or just for a hours teaching slot) or presenting/speaking with students (selected students/classroom/year assembles or whole school assemblies). Feedback from these events has been massive, especially in increasing the awareness of what careers are available for students in the cyber/computer science environment.

Fashion and Wearable Technology Dragon's Den Event at Community School Newent Community School hosted a Dragon's Den event in December, with a Fashion and Wearable Technology theme. The Dragons were: • Andrea Litherland, senior vice president, head of EMEA Cyber Security Operations, Global Information Security (GIS), Bank of America Merrill Lynch • Diane Savory, Chair of the Gfirst LEP, and Ex COO of Superdry/cult clothing etc • Simon Humphries, National Coordinator for Computing At Schools • Neil Watkins, Director, Think IT • Jacqui Chard, Deputy Director, Defence and National Security, NCSC

The students were fully engaged around the subject and produced some impressive pitches to the panel of Dragons. The winning teams were:

• Year 7 - ALA; who presented their idea of having a shoe where the heel can shrink at the press of a button! From heels to flats in seconds - genius!

• Year 8 - Quad Core Innovations; who presented their idea of an adaptable jacket, fully equipped with a camera, hands free headset, mini speaker, fitness tracker and heating pads. I think we could all do with one of these! It was also great to see so many female students taking part (74% in total), showing there is potential within this area to tackle the gender diversity issue within Computer Science and Cyber Security. All of the pitches were done with confidence and professionalism, and it was evident that a lot of hard work had gone into them from the students and the teachers involved. We look forward to the next Dragons Den. Minecraft and Python Lesson: Visual Coding on Raspberry Pi Deep3 have developed a series of lesson plans using the game Minecraft, teaching the students to code through play. The lessons take you through writing your first lines of python to make the blocks appear in the game of Minecraft. The resource can be presented as a short demonstration or as a collection of lessons that can be worked through. They can be found on the cyberhub.uk website, under Schools>Lessons. XQCyber and Scalextric Cleeve school have been working with XQCyber on developing a Cyber activity around Scalextric. Cleeve has developed an electronic timing sensor and the staff at XQCyber are now working hard to develop this concept, with an electronic scoreboard, and ways it can be secured and hacked (including both the scoreboard and the data it is receiving). Interestingly the very smart folk at XQCyber are also looking at security aspects that would normally be covered by the term, Critical National Infrastructure, i.e. looking at how the power to the race cars can also be affected. Cleeve has dropped off a Scalextric track at the XQCyber offices which is if course providing plenty of interest and motivation to the staff.

Cyber Nights Utilising the innovative space that the project has built at Beaufort School, we are now exploring the concept of monthly 'Cyber Nights', based around an approach pioneered by the Mayor of London's office. Cyber Nights will be hosted Teacher CPD events, where food and drink will be provided in addition to teacher CPD activities. Beaufort is currently organising these events and has the likes of Ohbot running separate events for both Primary teachers and secondary school teachers, to educate teachers on how to get the most out of their robots, and Cyber Security Associates running events on educating teachers on hacking techniques and the cyber security concepts to secure against them. Themes of food that have been proposed include Chinese, Pizza, Indian and Fish 'n' Chips.