County Schools' Challenge won by Anti Bullying Idea

David Wright the director of the UK Safer Internet Centre was one of a panel of judges including chief constable Adrian Lee of Northamptonshire Police, the chairman of the Internet Watch Foundation Richard Tilt, Andrew Cheal from Northamptonshire County Council and Darren Dovey from Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service.

A team of pupils who designed a purple bow in conjunction with a ‘mufti day’ to help raise awareness of and tackle cyber-bullying while promoting online safety have won this year’s County Schools’ Challenge.The pupils from Guilsborough School were chosen as winners of the annual event which was held at The Castle Theatre in Wellingborough last week.

They were one of eight teams from schools across Northamptonshire who pitched ideas to a panel of ‘dragons’.

Prevention manager Laura Jones, said: “The final has been fantastic.“I’m always in awe of the quality of the presentations and the ideas the students have come up with.“I’m always in awe that they can get up on stage in front on an audience and professional panel and actually pitch their idea.“There’s a number of ideas from tonight that are so good and have such merit behind them that we will be looking to help develop them after tonight.”

The County Schools Challenge is a joint project between Northamptonshire Police, the Arson Task Force and Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service.Twenty teams took part in the semi-finals which were held over two days at Northamptonshire Police headquarters at Wootton Hall last month.

This year’s challenge was to come up with a way of tackling cyber bullying and promoting online safety.