Earlier this year, a team of four Year 8 students from The Royal Masonic School for Girls triumphed over teams from schools around the country and were crowned winners of the National Cyber Security Centre / GCHQ CyberFirst competition.
As part of their prize for winning, the girls, along with the other finalists of the competition, were invited to afternoon tea at Windsor Castle, in the company of HRH The Duke of York.
Laura Ferguson, Hattie Simpson, Angelina Paz-King and Alexa Wolff were all thrilled to have been given the opportunity to meet a member of the royal family, His Royal Highness Prince Andrew.
Hattie said: “This was an absolutely incredible experience and it is something that we will never forget.”
During their visit the the Castle, the girls spoke to The Duke of York about the importance of spreading the word about careers in cybersecurity, saying how jobs in this field need to become as well known as other professions such as Medicine and Law.
The Duke of York also counselled the girls on how they should never wait for people to find out about things but rather should challenge themselves to discover new things, and should not allow people to tell them “no”, instead they should grab opportunities that present themselves.
This trip was the end of a long road in the CyberFirst competition that started back in January with a series of online tasks. When the girls started, they had no idea that they would end up national champions, dubbed “the UK’s most cyber-savvy girls”, having tea with a member of the Royal Family.