Cyber Schools Hubs Newsletter January 2019 Digital Cyber Academy and Immersive Labs Immersive Labs in their support for the project provide free access for project schools to their online Digital Cyber Academy. Originally aimed at universities and companies this platform provides a great on-line learning environment in addition to a space for competition between schools and students as their learning earns points. As of writing this article, the current ranking for our schools is pretty impressive when you realise some of the UK and overseas universities who are also using this platform. The score is not as important as the learning it provides, and it is great to see the spoke schools in addition to the Hub schools taking up this opportunity. (A warm welcome to the Dean Academy our newest spoke school to join the project). Quite a few of our schools are using this as a platform to support the Cyber Clubs they are running, while students can also access the platform in their own time (either at school or at home). Nice to see our top 3 schools getting higher scores than the US Military Academy and Imperial College London.... • 19 - Berkeley Green UTC • 26 - Cleeve School • 54 - Wyedean • 96 - Ribston Hall • 127 - The Crypt School • 290 - The Cotswold School • 357 - Beaufort Co-operative Academy • 361 - Newent Community School • 506 - The Dean Academy Interestingly Ribston Hall has rolled the Digital Cyber Academy out across both Y11 and Y13 computer science classes and within a subset of Y12. 21 students are now signed up with varying levels of activity. Ribston is undertaking the analysis and alignment to GCSE and A-Level specifications and has already identified aligned activities for Phishing, Malware and Shoulder surfing. Ribston used the sql injection activity in lesson, with year 11s, linked to the systems security unit of work. Cleeve's high score is a tribute to the weekly hack club that is now being run, some dedicated students (who already have the hacker T-shirts) being supported not only by two teachers from the Computer Science Department but by the new maths teacher who has recently come on board. IRM & Sofia, an 'inspirational female' visits Wyedean Sophia Mcall, who is currently on her work placement year at IRM Security in Cheltenham, visited Wyedean school as part of the Inspirational Female Programme that the project runs. Sophia who is studying Cyber Security at Bournemouth University, is a a student ambassador for Cyber Security Challenge UK, and also represented Team UK in the European Cyber Championships in 2017 and 2018. Sophia also entered the Cyber Security Challenge UK's 2017 Masterclass and was awarded the Judy Baker Award: The Best Newcomer to Cyber Security. Sophia was first recommended to NCSC for the Inspirational Female Programme when she was still at university, having written a blog about getting more Females into Cyber (see https://cyberworld.news/opinion-analysis/future-leaders/women-cyber-security/). The students at Wyedean found the topics covered by Sophia during her talk, such as social engineering, ethical hacking and why Cyber Security is important, extremely enlightening and were also very impressed in hearing about the various competitions that Sofia had been involved in. Sofia has now joined Madeline from CSA on the Wyedean 'Women in Cyber' board, to remind the female students what is possible for them to achieve. Deep3 Director @ Beaufort Richard Yorke, one of the Directors of Deep3, visited Beaufort school to provide a motivational and inspiring career talk to the students. Beaufort is reaching out to industry supporters to help with motivating and inspiring students to help widen and expand their knowledge of what is possible for them to achieve. Beaufort admits that some of the students never leave their post code and unfortunately due to family circumstances are not exposed to what careers are out there for them to work towards, and that the project's industry supporters can really make a difference to the students. Wyedean to Cynam 6th Form students and teachers from Wyedean were invited to visit the Cynam event 'The evolving role of the CISO', held at the Jurys Inn in Cheltenham. Students got to hear an interesting discussion chaired by Buck Rogers, CISO of the Bank of England (one of the projects keenest supporters), on Computer Security and the role a company’s CISO plays. Feedback from the students and teachers was varied on this experience, but they all get to see and hear what real CISO's thought (from the CISO for Heathrow Airport to the ex CISO for HP) and experience this aspect of the industry for real. The next Cynam event promises to be interesting with a focus on Cyber Crime, Past, Present and Future threats, and will be held on 21st March at the Jurys Inn again. If any schools are interested in attending, please get in contact with the NCSC team and we will see if we can acquire some tickets (transport costs will also be covered). Cyber Day at Denmark Road and Beaufort Both Denmark Road and Beaufort schools have recently hosted Cyber Days. This concept was pioneered by Denmark Road, where industry comes into the school and runs a base with an activity for the day. The students then rotate around all the different bases and companies, getting a fantastic 'speed dating' experience of Computer Science and Cyber. Denmark Road have aimed this day at year 8's in an effort to highlight how interesting and exciting Computer Science can be, to promote Computer Science as a GCSE, while Beaufort picked the top 50 science and maths students looking to interest them in GCSE Computer Science. These days have been supported by the likes of CSA, Deep3, CGI, Ohbot, SWRCCU, Raytheon, EDF, National Grid and Lockheed Martin. Wyedean has already registered an interest in doing something similar. If other schools are interested please get in touch, likewise if other industry supporters are interested in supporting these events more support is always welcome, especially with the larger schools. Wyedean visit FUJITSU SOC Thanks to some engagement through the UTC industry partnership scheme, NCSC were able to facilitate FUJITSU coming on board as an industry supporter. The first activity that FUJITSU offered was a visit to their Security Operations Centre (SOC) in Warrington, with Wyedean first to take up the opportunity (Cleeve is currently working on taking the second opportunity to visit the SOC). FUJITSU put on an excellent and informative day for the Wyedean students, who were impressed with the number of female employees who take leading roles in the SOC, while also learning about what the FUJITSU SOC does, and also having fun playing with the expensive glass walls (now you see me, now you don't). The students feedback on the whole event, showed that it was worth the long coach trip up to Warrington for the experience. CSA support Beaufort with Pi's and a Director CSA visited Beaufort to provide students with a cyber activity based on their Cyber Pi crate. This was well received by the students, who also got to use the new 'Cyber Hub' facility that Beaufort now boasts. Not only did CSA staff deliver the activity for the students but in addition, David, one of CSA's two Directors, took time out of his calendar to chat and meet with students, holding a Question and Answer session, as a way of trying to improve some of the student’s aspirations, by sharing his own personal story and understanding of opportunities that are presenting themselves for students looking to move into the Cyber Security career field when they leave education. Raising student's aspirations is a key focus for Beaufort in addition to getting students excited about Computer Science and Cyber Security. Five schools to TNMOC As part of NCSC's efforts to enhance the delivery of Computer Science within the projects schools and the concept of seeing if schools could work with each other, 5 schools got the opportunity to have a free visit to TNMOC. Newent and Dene Magna travelled together, Beaufort and Barnwood Park travelled together, and Cleeve school visited on its own. All the students and teachers had a fantastic and educational time, with Cleeve seeing again some of the computers he used to use. NCSC are in further discussions with the TNMOC programme leads about developing the experience for other schools to visit. Wyedean is looking to take students in the near future. If this is something your school would like to participate in, please get in contact with the NCSC team. Wyedean to CSA CSA have been working closely with Wyedean to help develop appropriate learning material for both students and teachers for their Cyber Pi crate concept. As a thank you and to also help CSA test their new CyberDea concept, CSA hosted 24 female students at their facility in Quedgeley for the day. The students got to experience the Cyber training range in addition to getting some expert help from CSA staff on using the Cyber Pi crates. The experience as a female only event helped inspire the students and was hyped as part reward for some excellent school work. CSA were pleased to trial their new CyberDEA experience while also supporting the work of the project to inspire more female students into Computer Science and Cyber Security. Space the final frontier Cleeve School have been running a Mars Rover project club funded by the NCSC. The Mars Rover project has been a great success, engaging students and teachers in three separate areas: science, computer science and engineering. Three separate groups of students have worked in the different disciplines, coming together to be involved in the near space balloon flight in October.