06 | NEWS | PRIMARY AND SECONDARY


LEFT:


Frank Lampard is supporting the toolkit


BT helps teachers take on computing


Primary school teachers across England are being invited to a series of computing workshops run by the Barefoot Computing Project. The scheme aims to help primary school teachers implement the new computing curriculum, which comes into force in September. It is being led by BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, in partnership with BT, and is funded by the Department for Education. The Barefoot Computing project will


simplifi ed to introduce these principles to children as young as fi ve. BT is also adding


BETWEEN NOW AND MAY 2015 800 WORKSHOPS IN


PRIMARY SCHOOLS ACROSS ENGLAND


provide cross-curricular computer science resources for primary school teachers with no previous computer science knowledge. Teachers will gain an understanding of ideas and concepts such as algorithms, abstraction and data structures, how they occur naturally in many other disciplines they teach, and how they can be


THE BAREFOOT COMPUTING PROJECT WILL HOLD


further support to the classroom by making ScratchJr, a new programming tool specifi cally aimed at fi ve–seven-year-olds, available in UK primary schools for the fi rst time from this autumn. Children


can access the application,


developed at the Massachuset s Institute of Technology (MIT), via iPads and use basic coding skills to create their own interactive stories and games. In doing so, children learn important design and problem-solving skills, as well as developing their numeracy and literacy abilities. Between now and May 2015, the


Barefoot Computing project will hold a series of 800 computing workshops in primary schools across England. Run


by volunteer professionals, including those from BT and the ICT and education sectors, these events will introduce the new computing curriculum to teachers and will explain the support available to them through Barefoot and other related projects. The project will create primary


school-friendly classroom resources that exemplify how to teach computing through topics that are relevant to the cross-curricula primary school environment. For example, the materials provided will cover how to write computer games and other classroom computing activities for children from Year 1 (age 5) to Year 6 (age 10/11) that also support progression in subjects such as literacy, maths, history and science. In addition to the Barefoot workshops,


the project team will also develop Barefoot communities enabling teachers to share ideas and good practice around teaching computing with other primary teachers.


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