SECONDARY school pupils from Theale have won an award at the Industrial Cadets Awards 2019.

A team of six Year 8 students from Theale Green School have won the RSA Digital Risk Management Prize at the Industrial Cadets Awards 2019 ceremony, held at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, London, on Thursday November 21.

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The Industrial Cadets Awards is a part of a week-long event, celebrating the achievement of young people who have taken part in an accredited Industrial Cadets programme.

HRH The Prince of Wales is the Patron of Industrial Cadets.

The Theale Green School team, consisting of Poppy, Lawrence, Alannah, Christopher, Shannon and Jean-Marie, had recently been shortlisted for the award after successfully completing the Digital Risk Management Competition (against over 100 teams from across the Thames Valley), led by global cybersecurity leader, RSA Security and in partnership with the Engineering Development Trust (EDT).

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Julie Feest, CEO at EDT, said: “The competition is a brilliant opportunity to engage young people in the topic of risk and security through our ‘experience day’ mechanism, as supported by our patron, HRH Prince Charles.

"It’s ultimately all about giving students the knowledge and exposure to help them make informed decisions about their future.”

The competition had been designed to educate Thames Valley-based students on the digital risks they will face in their personal, school and eventually, professional lives – from cyber-attacks to data privacy – to help ensure the future of our digital economy will be secure.

RSA Security warned that the Thames Valley digital economy could face growth challenges unless the cybersecurity skills gap is addressed.

With this in mind, the programme consisted of 10 ‘experience days’ during September, October and November 2019.

The first half of the programme was an introduction to RSA Security, the work they do, and educating the students on what digital risk is and why it must be managed.

The second half saw students take part in a series of hands-on activities to find solutions to different risk scenarios, before pitching their ideas to a panel of judges, and finally being shortlisted.