The final of the School Cyber Games, part of the Cyber Security Challenge’s programme for schools, saw Stockport School emerge victorious once again as UK Schools Cyber Security Champions. This was the third time the competition has been run, and the second time the final has been held at the University of Warwick’s Department of Computer Science.

The Cabinet Office-backed competition aims to raise awareness of the excitement of a career in cyber security amongst a new generation of young people in order to address a growing skills shortage in this sector, as well as help teachers tackle the huge changes being made in the computing curriculum in schools.

Eight teams of Key Stage 4 students overcame a series of fun code-breaking and cyber security themed challenges to claim top prizes, including a cash prize of £1,000 and Hexbug robot kits. There were two teams from Stockport School, as well as teams from, The Kings School (Chester), King Edward IV School (Chelmsford), Grimsby Institute, High School for Girls (Gloucester), Hailybury School (Hertfordshire) and Ysgol Maesydderwen (Powys). Each was selected after finishing as the highest scorers from schools all over the country who registered for the first stage of the Cyber Security Challenge’s Schools Programme, an online code-cracking competition.

Each challenge was devised by experienced cyber security experts at Cyber Security Challenge sponsors and partners, including BT, Bletchley Park, Birmingham City University, the Cabinet Office, Cisco, CompTIA, MWR/Dataline, Raytheon, The Smallpeice Trust and Warwick Manufacturing Group. Brian Higgins, who co-ordinates the Cyber Security Challenge’s programme for schools, was the Gamesmaster.

On completion of these challenges, the teams then had to put together the clues completing each challenge had given them and crack one final code against the clock to discover the password needed to access the winning computer. The winning team from Stockport School managed to interpret the clues and discover the password in less than two minutes!

There was also a good deal of press attention, including a reports from Newsround and the Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/jan/06/computer-hacking-security-teaching-schools)