Students at Rendcomb College in Cirencester love getting their hands dirty during forest school lessons, whether that’s climbing trees or using sticks to build makeshift structures. But, surprisingly, the problem-solving skills they acquire in the process are helping them learn the basics of how to give instructions to a computer: coding.
“We don’t need to sit them down and study a really dry hierarchy chart to teach them how to be leaders and solve problems. We’ve got different ways of looking at it,” explains Jonathan Torbitt, the director of IT and computing at the independent school for children aged 3-18.
In one lesson, for example, the students attempt to build a bridge across a small river nearby. Torbitt says: “The idea is the same – they are given a problem and they have to come up with a specification that meets the requirement. They make it, they test it, and if it doesn’t work they try again until they get it right. It’s exactly the same principle with coding a piece of software – they have to follow the same process. It is logical and creative.”
Whether a school has the space and resources to run outdoor lessons or not, the former computer scientist says it’s important for teachers to experiment with fresh ways to teach the subject.
Students at Rendcomb are further engaged in computing through project-based learning, including virtual reality kits to develop games on, repairing old arcade machines, and fixing classmates’ broken laptops.
He explains: “The kids will come to school with different motivators, so you have got to pitch it in a way that is exciting and worth remembering. You will only educate them if a lesson sticks in their brains.”
The school was one of the early adopters of computing, introducing the subject in 2013 – a year before the subject became compulsory in the UK. Torbitt claims interest from students has steadily risen over the past couple of years, with 30% of students at the school now choosing it as a GCSE.
Equipping children with programming skills is seen by the government as a long-term solution to the well -reported “skills gap”. A 2016 report by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills Development, alongside the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, found that 72% of large companies and 49% of small and medium-sized businesses are currently suffering from shortages of employees with digital skills.
According to Bill Mitchell, director of education at the BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, the UK will be at a competitive disadvantage in the future without the relevant digital skills in the labour market. He celebrated the introduction of computing into the national curriculum and claims the subject isn’t just about training the next generation of computer scientists. Digital technology will be used in all career sectors in the future and it teaches skills which people from a diverse range of professions will need, from doctors and lawyers to designers and engineers.
However, he claims that it’s not the ability to code that is important; it’s the computational thinking skills which children learn as a result that is really crucial.
“The most important thing [coding] teaches children is a way of thinking,” he explains. “Coding is a means to an end. The end is children’s minds grasping those computational skills and being good at them.”
Although Mitchell believes schools have made huge progress since computing became part of the curriculum – the number of students sitting GCSE computer science almost doubled from 35,000 in 2015 to 61,000 in 2016 – he insists that the subject’s continued success will only be achievable if schools invest in more support and professional development for its teachers, many of whom do not have a previous background in the subject.
Mitchell claims that support needn’t be costly for schools on a budget and could include making links with local universities and technology businesses which are often willing to collaborate with teachers.
Jennifer Young, a homeroom teacher at Emerson Elementary School in Winnipeg, Canada, has found the internet and social media invaluable for engaging students in computing. She has been teaching coding for three years at the school and her students participate in the global “hour of code” movement started by Computer Science Education Week and Code.org which reaches tens of millions of students in more than 180 countries through a one-hour introduction to computer science and computer programming.
She says: “We do coding not just on computers but also on iPhones, iPads and any other type of tablet or handheld device that the students come into school with.”
Young adds that there are a variety of apps which students can download, such as Pixel Press Floors which allows children to literally draw their own video game, watch it come to life and then play it with friends. Although it doesn’t require knowledge of coding, she claims it is teaching younger students the critical thinking and computational skills they can then take with them into more advanced lessons on the subject. Importantly, the students are working collaboratively on these projects.
“For me it is all about equipping them with 21st-century skills and that comes down to the four Cs – collaboration, critical thinking, being able to communicate strongly and being creative,” she says. “It’s not often that we work in total isolation and we need the ability to work with other people. Teaching coding brings so many people together and I see the excitement in my students’ eyes and that’s what is key. They are passionate, want to come to school and are super engaged.”
Chris Wilde, a school improvement Advisor at North Tyneside City Learning Centre, has been using LEGO Education’s WeDo 2.0 system to introduce key stage 2 pupils to the basic of robotics, engineering and programming – by building and programming a rover called Milo.
“We started with project A: Milo the Science Rover,” he explains. “The pupils worked effectively through all stages, building the model and coding the controlling program. Once this happened and the model was running based on their commands the pupils were really chuffed.
“The pupils then went on to complete project B: Milo’s Motion Sensor and C: Milo’s Tilt Sensor, and the response was exactly the same as before. They were enthused; they found the app easy to use, and the builds challenging yet rewarding. We even delved deeper into computer science by discussing the difference between an input and an output, and what these were in relation to Milo.”
Using their new knowledge from making Milo, pupils were able to create their own models, a dolphin, race car, dinosaur, frog, gorilla, crane, and a snake, and Wilde is confident that the students are developing creative approaches to computing as a result.
Matt Howe, head of computer science, computing and ICT at Headington School in Oxford, adds that while computing is a subject on its own, it can be used to enrich other subjects from maths to languages and art.
For example, members of the girls school’s robotics club (which started as a way to attract students not necessarily interested in taking computing as an academic subject) built robots using 3d printers and programmed them to perform thespian insults from the works of famous Shakespearean plays.
But in order for the subject to really flourish in classrooms, schools first need to move away from the assessment-obsessed culture that currently exists.
Howe says: “We are used to marking children on the output and how good it was or met a specification, but that’s the wrong thing. We need to be saying that actually this is about exploring and developing something. It’s OK to be confused and make mistakes. What’s the worst thing that can happen? A syntax error? That’s part of the process.”
