CyberSprinters Additional Resources for the Home

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC), which is part of GCHQ, has launched some new resources to help parents and carers have conversations with their Primary School aged children about cyber security.

These new resources, which NCSC has developed in partnership with Internet Matters, are 15 puzzles, aimed at children aged between seven and 11 years old, and three interactive stories for young people to read with adults.

They form part of a suite of resources empowering parents and carers to have conversations around cyber security in the home environment and have been created to build upon the success of the free interactive game CyberSprinters, also aimed at 7 to 11-year-olds, which was launched by the NCSC last year. CyberSprinters is designed to make learning about cyber security fun and interactive at a time when children might begin to seek more independence online. The online game sees players become a 'cybersprinter' who is racing against its own depleting battery power. Users can win battery power by correctly answering questions about cyber security but face losing it if they bump into 'cybervillains'.

Also now available are educational presentations and activities for children to complete and to encourage wider discussion of the subject. The game and accompanying resources support the school curricula across the UK's four nations by linking in with key learning objectives and have been developed for use in formal settings such as classrooms as well as in non-formal settings such as by clubs and youth organisations.

The game is available at www.ncsc.gov.uk/collection/cybersprinters and the wider resources can be found on the NCSC website www.ncsc.gov.uk