Priory students go digital with Lancashire Cyber Festival Education Week  

Year 8 & 9 pupils explored cyber skills and education opportunities as part of Lancashire Cyber Partnership’s county-wide showcase.

During a visit to Brockholes Nature Reserve on 5 February a group of Year 8 & Year 9 girls gained first-hand experience of how today’s classroom skills can grow into tomorrow’s careers in cyber.

The Lancashire Cyber Festival Education Week brought together more than 9,000 young people from across the county to learn more about Lancashire’s rapidly expanding cyber ecosystem.

Forty pupils took part in a day of engaging cyber activities - with an emphasis on fun, interaction, and teamwork, these included cyber-based quizzes, code-breaking challenges, cybercrime protection exercises, and virtual escape room competitions.

Year 9 Sophia told us, “For the first activity we got given a sphere bot and an iPad and we had to programme the bots around different tracks by using the iPad and the programming app. It was awesome - the bots also had lights on them and we got to change the colour off them too.

“The second session was about making a sustainable app using Microsoft CoPilot and Repclit. My group made a fitness tree app where you had to walk to earn points which turned into money and then after you had £1 you could buy one tree and pick any place in the world to plant it
“During session three was learning about cyber safety and making sure we didn’t get scammed. A company “called Blue Earth got a message from a scam account (we didn’t know it was a scam account) asking for £5.5m however our group knew it was a scam and knew what to do!
 
“We were on computers for our final session, online escaping from different rooms by looking around the room trying to find hints to get the four word code to escape. We only did two rooms but we tried are best! 

“Overall I thought this was an amazing trip, I would go again. My favourite session was session three because I got really into it and learning about cyber safety.  Thank you for taking me on this trip”.
Commenting on Priory’s involvement in the event, Mrs Qadri said: “This event was designed to transform the way that students think about careers in computing. The immersive and inspiring activities were led by some of the leading tech organisations from around the world at a pivotal moment in their education.  Hopefully, this experience has changed pupils’ perspectives on computing and inspired the next generation of cyber professionals.”

With Lancashire set to be the home of the National Cyber Force headquarters, and with the Lancashire Cyber Partnership supporting collaboration across schools, colleges, and universities, local opportunities for learners are growing.

Education Week showed students of all ages how their interests in computing, mathematics, science, design, and creative subjects can lead to exciting roles in cyber and related industries.