YEAR 9 French and German students at Carlton le Willows took part in an online outreach session with GCHQ (Government Communications Head Quarters) to see how language skills can help students be recruited by the government cyber and security agency, whose mission is to keep the UK safe. 

The outreach event began with a presentation on the role of GCHQ and why Language Analysts are crucial to the agency’s work in dealing with Counter Terrorism, Cyber Security and Serious and Organised Crime prevention.

The students then took part in language scenario activities, which involved de-cyphering the French/German coded messages sent by criminals in a number of possible national security scenarios. The session ended with a Q&A, unfortunately – but unsurprisingly – GCHQ were not able to answer a couple of our students’ questions due to the top secret nature of their work. The students really enjoyed the session which helped them to start thinking about their future careers and how languages could play a vital role.