It’s been ‘all change’ this year for most primary and junior schools in the delivery of puberty and sex education. Happily, gone is the far too long-lived ‘sex after SATs’ approach, with its visiting speaker coming in to deliver the gory truth in one terrifying fell swoop. The statutory RSHE curriculum demands that we prepare children in advance for the changes to come so that no child is unnecessarily frightened by the changes in their body. It has further supported the needs of children by clarifying that puberty education is not sex education, so children are now entitled to learn about their own body’s changes and cannot be removed by wary parents.

So how has it gone in your school this year? Teachers have been kept out of this content for so long that a considerable amount of insecurity and fear has developed around it. As a result, many schools have heavily relied on delivering the content of a purchased resource lock stock and puberty-barrel. If this has been your school’s experience, maybe it is now time to reflect and to build staff knowledge, confidence and ownership of the content and to form a better plan that tailors the lessons to your pupil’s needs ready for next year.

Many of the resources for delivering a comprehensive programme for RSHE that are on the market provide solidly good lessons (once you have livened them up a bit). However, puberty education tends to be the Achilles-heal for a great many of them. There is far too much focus on ‘this is preparing you for having children’, widely supported by biological diagrams that mean almost nothing to many children. 

Puberty brings about bodily changes that are about maturing and becoming an adult. The physical changes come first, and the brain matures more slowly. In puberty the brain is suddenly awash with hormones that lead to all sorts of emotions, many of which can develop into overly-competitive and power-based approaches to relationships (the ‘pecking order of who is in and who is out). In which year do your hurtful or unkind incidents really start to ramp up?

Puberty is a time when you start to experience inexplicable mood swings and emotions. So key learning has to involve understanding and managing moods and helping children to recognise that they must find a moral route through it all.

The devil is in the detail as the requirements emphasise that lessons need to be age- and/or stage-appropriate. Some seven year olds will be developing breasts and pubic hair whilst being quite emotionally and psychologically immature. Some children who have experienced trauma or abuse may be ready earlier than their peers for learning about sexuality and consent. A further group may already have an interest in or ‘assumed knowledge’ of sex through online experiences which are likely to be morally skewed.

So we must adapt our teaching to sufficiently meet the needs of children who are ahead of the curve, whilst maintaining an approach that gets rid of the separation of boys and girls and thus avoid any promotion of secrecy around puberty issues. A spiral curriculum approach, baselining and accessing pupil voice will be key to getting this right.

HFL Education’s Wellbeing Team have been supporting some schools already this summer on puberty and sex education. If we can support your staff team to be ready, confident and equipped for next year’s sex and puberty education, please contact us on wellbeing@hertsforlearning.co.uk.

June is that beautiful time of year when nature is leafing, greening, budding, and generally flourishing. It is also Pride month and the terminology ‘Pride’ says it all. This is a perfect time to take stock and make sure that LGBT+ people are safe, feel safe and can flourish, within and because of your school.

The statutory requirements for Relationships, Sex and Health Education (RSHE) are now being delivered in all our schools. Those requirements are very clear that LGBT inclusion must be integrated across the whole teaching programme. So if you haven’t marked Pride month before – this is the moment to seize.

Pride month is an important opportunity to celebrate LGBT+ people in all their diversity; to break out the rainbow flag and explore the symbolism of its different coloured stripes; to ‘beat the bounds’ of your school grounds in your own Pride rainbow parade; to champion equal rights for LGBT+ people; and to celebrate the accomplishments of LGBT+ individuals through history. Above all, we can ensure that all our staff recognise the importance of LGBT+ inclusion. June might be Pride month, but LGBT+ people should be positively represented and valued in our curriculum all the time.

There are many influential people who have greatly contributed to society throughout history, who also happen to have been LGBT+. These people could be celebrated across different subjects in the curriculum. Here are some examples.

	Alan Turing who effectively invented the first computer and contributed significantly to the ending of World War 2 by ‘cracking the codes’.
	Gentleman Jack (the subject of a popular BBC drama series) was born in Yorkshire in the late 18th Century. Her diaries were written in code and weren’t deciphered until the 1930’s.
	The poet Siegfried Sassoon (pictured above right) was a soldier decorated for bravery in WW1.  He was known to have had relationships with men and certainly formed an influential friendship with fellow poet Wilfred Owen (pictured above left), who fought and died in that war.
	Marsha P Johnson was an African-American transgender woman. She was one of the prominent figures in the Stonewall Uprising in 1969 and was also an outspoken advocate for gay rights.

There are many examples of LGBT+ individuals who have influenced our lives more recently and are still with us today. The children may be familiar with: Sir Ian McKellan, Nicola Adams, Tom Daley, Elton John, Graham Norton, Stephen Fry and Clare Balding, to name just a few.

I am writing this Blog at home on 1st May. By long tradition across the British Isles, this day was recognised as the first day of summer. Falling almost half way between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, it marked the calendar day when livestock were moved to their summer pastures. However, its agricultural and social significance was so much more than just that.

May Day began the six week season of Beltane, the time of nature’s great flourishing. The Queen of the May (symbolised by the flowering hawthorn) and the Green Man bring with them the rapid growth of crops and flowers that will ultimately lead to mature growth and food security.

When our lives were more closely linked to the turning of the seasons, such a moment was a time of jubilation, marked with communal gatherings for feasting and fire festivals. I am told that a Beltane fire festival is an annual event at Calton Hill in Edinburgh on the night of 30th April.

In Oxford I have joined the crowds on many a May morning that gather on Magdalene Bridge at dawn to hear the college choir sing in the summer with traditional seasonal carols.

“Summer is a-coming in, loudly sing cuckoo…”

Why am I wittering on about these largely lost celebrations? Well, for the most part we are losing these punctuations of life linked to the rhythm of nature.

One positive side effect for many of us during Covid has been the rediscovery of the natural joys of our local footpaths, parks and gardens. Many of us have metred out our locked-down days with a new appreciation of small escapes into green spaces or even into wildness. We have observed the weather more closely. We have tasted the delight of being dressed for the season and drunk deeply the outside air. Above all we have noticed the turning seasons.

Those tastes of nature have supported our wellbeing and provided families with quality time together. They have been moments that have quite simply kept us going. So why shouldn’t we maintain our closer relationship with nature’s rhythms and rediscover our ancient celebrations?

It’s not too late to celebrate Beltane. And after that? The summer solstice, of course, welcoming in the season of Litha (light). 

We are so very fond of dropping the ‘S’ word, aren’t we? “I’m so stressed.” -  “This is too stressful!” – “I’m beyond stress” – “Aaargh!” And may I say, it’s no wonder. Right now we are living through experiences not known for over 100 years in our little corner of the world. The last year has been full of lost freedoms, imposed limitations and a herculean need to manage everything and everyone in different ways, whilst living in complete disconnection and chaos.

Living in the unknown, surrounded by risk and uncertainty, always adds that chilli-burn of stress to any situation. Covid has certainly been tough, and in many unexpected ways. But hold on! When you look back to those heady pre-Covid days, when all was ‘normal’ in your world, weren’t you still feeling stressed then? Isn’t it just part of modern living that we tend to be time and energy-poor? Don’t we usually have a sense that the expectations and demands driving us are constantly heading into overdrive? Or maybe it is just me?…but I don’t think so.

Where do these expectations and demands come from? Well I’m not letting work, money, families, shopping, ill-health or anything else off the hook; but frankly, we also do it to ourselves.

Does any of this mostly silent monologue seem familiar? “Was it good enough? I should have… I didn’t… Why didn’t I?  They’ll think I’m useless. I am useless at this. I’m rubbish. I’m hopeless. I’m worthless. I hate myself. And I’m old/fat/stupid/[add in your own preferred seriously damaging insult]”

That familiar inner critic is so much more active when we are feeling stressed. In no time at all, we reach that vindaloo-heat where we hate our life, our work, our luck, our nearest and dearest and/or ourselves. All because of the overload of that ‘demon stress’.

It’s easy for me to say this, sitting here typing on a sunny evening at home, but it really doesn’t have to be that way. When we experience too much stress all at once and/or for too long we go into stress overload. But come on, let’s be honest. There were warning signs before you ever got to that point. You secretly knew it was all getting too much. Of course, you were trapped in that driving force that the stress was so great you couldn’t possibly stop to get some fresh air, have a hot cup of the legal drug of your choice (or some water), stretch your legs, play a couple of your favourite songs or just otherwise be spontaneous. Even though you know deep down that those things would have cooled the intensity of it all and given you some renewed perspective.

Much of the time, it isn’t that stress is the demon that we picture doggedly shadowing our every move, ready to drag us down into the burning pits of hell. Rather, stress responses communicate to us that the pressure is a bit much and that we might soon need to reach for the cucumber raita. Feelings of stress are triggered in our bodies to alert us to a chemical shift in our brain. For a fair while our brain can cope and will rise to the occasion. In fact, in the short term, stress can spur us on, make us more efficient or more creative.

We can also extend that period of time when we are coping well with those high levels of stress, by using tricks such as focusing on isolated tasks rather than multi-tasking, taking timely breaks and rehydrating, taking some exercise and/or some fresh air, breaking for some human interaction, accessing some help by organising things differently and/or shifting our own or others’ expectations. Instead, we ignore the warning signs and allow ourselves to spiral down into negativity and despair. Believe me, I know. I’ve got a whole wardrobe full of the t-shirts! 

As adults we tend to live too much in our minds and not enough in our bodies. The warning signs that you are under serious stress are there. If you can’t recognise them yourself, your family will probably enjoy telling you what they are! So catch them early and take regular remedial action. April is Stress Awareness Month and now is the time to make some good changes. Be your own hero. It’s time to treat yourself as you would your best friend.

Start by taking a look at this fascinating TED talk to see that stress can itself be your friend.

Kelly McGonigal: How to make stress your friend 

"The ultimate measure of a [person] is not where [they] stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where[they] stand at times of challenge and controversy."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Right minded people across the world have been profoundly shaken by the killing of George Floyd. The recording of the actual live event has hit hard through our screens, right into our own front rooms, bedrooms and kitchens. Schools of course have responsibilities under the Equality Act 2010 to recognise the impact of such events on pupils, students and their families, and to provide support to those most deeply affected by the initiating event and the subsequent widespread protests. Our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities in particular will be severely impacted by all of this. They may feel variously mobilised, fearful, deemed second-class, shocked, hated, disrespected, abused, and on and on. All these responses and more are inevitable. They want and need to know that schools and local authorities, along with all right minded people, understand the importance of events and the outrage they feel.

Racist acts of hatred and violence toward Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) people continue in countries across the world, including here in Britain. This most public murder of George Floyd in the USA has led to world-wide condemnation and protest for good reason. British law is unequivocal about the priority that we hold for eradicating prejudice and inequality, so we should not be surprised that British newsreaders did not hesitate to use terms such as ‘outrage’, ‘shameful’ and ‘murder’ so immediately when reporting on the killing. Under the Equality Act 2010, it is the duty of all schools and local authorities to recognise pupils’ need for support (individualised where needed) and to provide education to help all pupils to interpret the meaning of what they have seen, felt and experienced. We need to be seen in solidarity with pupils with ‘protected characteristics’ when they feel this vulnerable, this angry and this exposed.

Our position in school must be that we hold prejudice and discrimination as unacceptable and that every single one of us (adult and pupil) has a role in this. The school equality policy has meaning only if we make it responsive to real events. We want our young people to be active and caring citizens who are willing to challenge what they see as wrong, lacking or prejudicial in their own relationships and in society as a whole. We should help pupils to develop an understanding of the complexity of events that is based on full and correct information, an understanding of the law and an insight into the experience and feelings of others. What can schools and teachers do?

What can schools and teachers do?

1. The school equality policy into practice

Revisit the school’s equality statement or policy. What does it say? Does it say enough? Is it clear that the school has expectations of everyone to be active in ensuring a school environment free of racism and other areas of prejudice, and a system active in improving outcomes for BAME people in every aspect of school life, from recruitment to exclusion. Consider how to ensure that the whole school community recognises your active commitment to ‘living’ the policy. Decide if meets the needs of the current situation and if it sufficiently supports staff to manage classroom responses to major events.

2. Curriculum review

Revisit the curriculum. Does the school teach pupils enough to develop their own age appropriate opinions on racism, race relations and prejudice? It is relevant to so many curriculum areas, for example:

• PSHE/Citizenship – human rights and equal human worth as well as the equality laws; what slavery looks like in the modern world; evidence of racism in our society today
• English – Black voices on their experience of inequality in novels, poems, interviews and newspapers;
• History – the impact of colonialism in exploiting countries around the world and the rise of the slave trade, its impact on African communities and how it benefited colonisers, the journey to outlaw slavery in Britain;
• Geography – the ongoing legacy of British colonial exploitation around the world; demographics demonstrating our diminishing relevance in the world
• Relationships Education – equality law, the right to peaceful protest, democratic response at times of crisis, inequality in Britain today, resilience and active citizenship.

In particular, the new mandatory RSHE policy also requires every school from September 2020 to

• be flexible in adapting the curriculum to meet the needs of pupils
• ensure that pupils understand the law
• represent and teach about diversity and equality
• develop pupils’ critical thinking skills

3. Personal and emotional support during distance learning

It is important that all teachers are prepared to respond to the increased vulnerability and/or outrage that is being felt, particularly by members of the BAME communities. (Don’t assume that other students will not have been deeply affected too.) Teachers should raise the issue with pupils who are not physically present in school and give them the opportunity to talk about their feelings and experiences in connection with recent events. The conversation could also explore the resilience skills they are using to manage under this added pressure, distress and disturbance.

If they need further support this should be signposted. Students can also be signposted to websites such as Every Mind Matters and Health for Teens (both run by the NHS), as well as encouraged to look at a range of reliable and factual resources to help them make sense of the context that has led to these events.(see below)

4. Induction activity post-Covid

When school resumes, teachers will of course provide opportunities for pupils to reflect on the feelings and experiences they have had to manage through the lockdown period. Perhaps allowing them to write them down anonymously might encourage them not to be fearful or self-conscious about what they write. The collected papers could be grouped and explored in one or several class discussion/s and pupils wanting or needing it should be enabled to access further support, whether in or out of school. If the Black Lives Matter movement does not come up at all through such a process, teachers might express surprise about that, which could then lead into wider discussion of how shocking and significant the collective events have been across the world, including in Britain.

It is important that current events are understood in the context of the history that has brought us to this point and the data that shows how the reverberations continue today as a result of that history.  Pupils do need to develop a recognition that British colonial history was complicit in establishing racist attitudes and divides that have left a legacy that still impacts today. In this context they will better understand why people might find deeply offensive the celebration of historical figures that were inherently part of systemic slavery and exploitation of Black peoples over centuries. This also needs an underpinning of the law in the past, the law in the present and the political and legal systems by which change should be able to be brought about.

At the time of writing, Google maps shows the location of the Edward Colston statue as being in the River Avon. There is a long and detailed history in Bristol of public disquiet about this statue of a man whose wealth was gained at the expense of kidnapped, enslaved, murdered and abused Africans. There is much other evidence of the public celebration of Colston’s life in the city, such as in the naming of a major concert venue and a school. Local political processes failed repeatedly to find a way forward in the face of the growing protest evidenced around the statue constantly. This has been the experience of just one city. Since these developments the protests in other cities are also finding a stronger voice. Peaceful and lawful protest within the law is an important part of our democratic right of expression and our young people should understand that.

Many schools teach about the civil rights movement in the USA, whilst overlooking parallels in this country, such as the Bristol bus boycott in 1963*. The British experience of racism and prejudice was different from that in the USA, but racism exists in our country and we must continue to be open to learning how it manifests itself and be ready to take action. Do our primary and secondary schools still revisit the life of Stephen Lawrence and explore how much had to be learned by mainstream institutions about their contribution to his attack, his death on the street and the failure to prosecute his killers? I hope so. The learning made changes to the law. Did we talk with pupils about the Windrush scandal and revisit that history? It isn’t too late.

The ending of systemic racism in our society and in our institutions begins with knowledge and understanding of the past and the present. It requires empathy and a recognition of our shared humanity and personal responsibility. It takes ‘courageous advocacy’ to stand up for fairness and equality and it is our responsibility as educators to skill our young people to be able to recognise where there is a wrong and to stand up and be counted through lawful and safe means. To build a better society, each and every one of us in schools must be open to working on ourselves. In Michelle Obama’s words, “It starts with self-examination and listening to those whose lives are different from our own.”

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemoller

So Ofsted has finally recognised the importance of staff wellbeing to the effectiveness of schools! Who knew? Of course we all knew. Happy, properly trained, well supported and motivated staff with a good work-life balance will do a better job in the classroom and require fewer absence days. But by including staff wellbeing in their inspection framework, Ofsted are giving governors, leaders, and managers in schools a strong encouragement to allocate resources and time to ensure development in this area.

Recent data shows that work related absence due to stress, anxiety and depression is on the rise across the UK workforce and suggests that the central reasons are heavy workloads and poor management. Of course the managers also have heavy workloads. The chicken or the egg? The DfE have made a commitment to reduce teachers’ work load and are encouraging leaders to ensure staff have a positive work life balance. 

Of course, stress is not always an enemy.  It can motivate us to greater achievement and to experimentation with different approaches and new ideas. It can build our sense of achievement that we have dealt with everything that life has thrown at us. But that takes good positive self-talk and appreciative feedback from others that you have done well (manager’s please note!). So let’s not tell people that stress will kill you. At this point I could go into hormones and brain chemistry (but I won’t). Put simply, when our stress gets bigger, we can usually rise to meet it and we can surprise ourselves.  We all need to recognise our own early warning signs that we are struggling and have a selection of strategies to manage it: fresh air, exercise, listening to music that rests or inspires you, a space for mindfulness, having a laugh with someone else or – above all, to boost your positive oxytocin levels (it just slipped out!) - just talking to someone who will listen well (and not try to fix you! – note for all spouses, partners and good friends).

Only 50% of line managers say they have received training on how to support staff to manage stress. Our planning must go beyond the assumption that our staff will talk to someone at the appropriate moment if they need support.  Teachers can excel at feeling they are failing and blaming themselves for things that aren’t working well. So what about developing our line managers to understand stress and mental health issues and to be effective listeners and supporters? Managers need to be interested, appreciative and approachable. For detailed conversations, solution focused coaching can empower staff by focusing on moving forward positively. For this, managers need to set the right supportive tone, suspend any assumptions, recognise the staff member as a highly resourced individual and use quality approaches to access the strengths and experiences that staff member can bring to evolve solutions that they will be committed to and that will work for them.

The government’s priorities around mental health in schools and also the new Relationships Education, RSE and Health Education curriculum, both require teachers to be able to teach about and support pupils on mental health issues. Well, mental health and emotional wellbeing begins with each of us. It’s the old flight safety analogy of putting on your own mask first, before helping the children. If you are unconscious then you can’t help anybody else! So why not ensure that training on teaching about mental health also demonstrates how lessons from positive psychology can help teacher wellbeing as well.

The BBC Micro:Bit is the small (very small – smaller than a credit card) computer being distributed to every year 7 child in the country as part of a BBC initiative to help get children coding. The Micro:Bit website tells us that this little computer is in fact 18 times faster than the original BBC Micro computers from the 80s, which some of us (not mentioning any age groups) will remember, probably fondly.

I was excited to first get my hands on a Micro:Bit earlier this year, and my initial impression was how instant and accessible it was. I connected it to my laptop via a micro-USB cable, launched a browser, went to the Micro:Bit website and was coding in seconds.

And no sooner was I coding, than I thought how applicable to KS2 computing it was, despite being aimed at KS3.

This is mainly because the Micro:Bit website, through which the coding tools can be accessed, offers us 4 different programming environments. Whilst the Javascript and Python editors might be better led from the hands of specialist teachers, the Microsoft Block Editor will immediately seem familiar to many primary teachers, as it resembles other block programming tools such as Blockly and Scratch. And so even without glancing at the included tutorials, I was able to make the virtual Micro:Bit (displayed onscreen so you can test your code) flash that first “Hello World” message in seconds on its LEDs. And by downloading my code and copying it over to the actual Micro:bit I could see my program in action, for real.

Since the Micro:Bit became available, a number of local primary schools have contacted me to find out how they can buy their own devices so that KS2 children may develop their programming skills in this way. It will be interesting to see how widespread this device becomes across primary schools, as it becomes embedded in secondary practice.

It seems that a new app for programming or teaching children to code appears every week, and we are rather spoilt for choice these days. Many follow an independent learning, step-by-step approach, most are games of some sort, and often they are based on directing virtual robots or characters around various mazes or challenges.

It would be easy to bring in the shared iPads or tablets, hand them out to the children, and let them get on with it. And I’m sure many of the children would enjoy getting stuck into solving the puzzles and challenges these apps present.

But in a classroom environment, how can we make sure that we are getting the most from the apps and helping children to develop their skills in using decomposition, creating algorithms and programs, debugging and predicting? Those important computational thinking skills that the primary computing curriculum aims to teach.

One of the ways we can do this is to use the app as the stimulus and material for an activity, but not have children actually using the app on the device – at least not straight away. They can always work directly on the app after going through some of the activities below.

Let’s take one of my favourite ‘control the robot’ type of apps, Fix the Factory from Lego® Mindstorms® (free on the iTunes App Store and Google play).

(Screenshot from www.lego.com)

By simply projecting one of the levels onto the class screen, so that all the pupils can see the same level at the same time, we can first work as a class to solve the puzzle. Remember to start with clearly identifying what the objective of the puzzle actually is – for example, to collect the box and take it to the target. We could then go on to use squared paper and pencils, and every child can draw the arrows and symbols (which form the programming language that this particular robot understands) onto their paper to solve a level. As we work, step by step, though solving each task, we are using decomposition to break the problem into steps. The pupils can swap papers, check their peers’ solutions and correct any errors they might find – prediction and debugging. Another activity is for children to make a deliberate mistake in the program they are writing down, which their working partner must try to find. In that one activity a child will be decomposing, predicting and debugging.

Can we make the line of commands we’ve written down shorter by introducing repetition? It is less efficient to write down four arrows when we can write it once, followed by ‘x4’ or ‘repeat 4’ or just ‘4’.

To take it further, we could even use direction-based programming apps to help introduce the ‘real’ programming language Logo. A series of arrows can easily be translated into a series of basic logo commands, so children could learn directional commands in this way. Work on paper first, writing the Logo commands into the squares, before moving on to a Logo programming environment, such as MSW Logo or 2Simple Logo (part of Purple Mash.) Apps which don’t go beyond simple directions would be the best ones to use as the stimulus here, as we will struggle to find Logo commands comparable to picking up a box or jumping over a river!

(Remember that when we use directional Logo commands in a Logo programming environment we also need to state the distance to travel or the angle to turn.)

As I mentioned earlier, there are numerous apps where we can program virtual robots to solve tasks, so let’s have a look at a few possibilities.

Beebot (by TTS Group)

Free on the iTunes App Store.

This one probably needs no introduction. The free app is a faithful representation of the little robot found in many EY and KS1 classrooms. There’s nothing like actually programming a physical robot and seeing it follow your commands, but the app can be useful where the number of Beebots is limited, and as a stimulus for  activities away from the devices, as described above.

Bluebot (by TTS Group)

Free on the iTunes App Store and Google Play.

Beebot’s big brother is Bluebot – not actually physically bigger, but certainly more sophisticated. You can program the physical Bluebot robot through the free app, but even without an actual Bluebot, the app offers good basic programming challenges and exploration. The full functionality of the app, which includes repetition and 45o turns, is unlocked when you pair your tablet device with a physical Bluebot, over Bluetooth.

A.L.E.X. (by Awesomeapps.com)

Free on the iTunes App Store and Google Play (paid upgrade available.)

Alex is a robot, and the app offers directional programming challenges with increasingly more difficult levels. This also has a ‘create’ mode where players can build their own mazes. The create mode isn’t exactly programming – but it is fun!

Cargo-Bot (by Two Lives Left)

Free on the iTunes App Store and Google Play.

A more challenging game where we program factory machinery to move crates around.

As I mentioned in a recent blog post about apps for programming, we are rather spoilt for choice in the number of learn-to-code tools that are available today. Whatever your available platform, you are likely to be able to find a range of on and offline tools for teaching children the basics of programming. Some of these guide the user, step-by-step, through a learning journey, others are blank canvasses (often accompanied by tutorials) and some are combinations of both.

How can we make sure that children get the most from these tools and develop an understanding, through their use, of the key computer science / programming concepts that the national curriculum outlines?

I feel that without structuring and focusing their use, sometimes using these tools can lead children towards being competent users, often experts, of that particular tool without really understanding the concepts they are applying through their programming.

So, in no particular order,  let’s have a look at some of the things we can do with programming tools, in addition to ‘just’ writing programs, to get the most from them and maximise that computational thinking and learning!

Start unplugged

Yet again he found his underpants on the outside!

I’m a firm believer that the programming concepts/principles are best introduced and  taught away from computers. Let’s start by concentrating on what the concept is, rather than how it’s done in a particular tool. A variable can be a cardboard box into which counters are dropped for each correct answer in a quiz. Selection can start with a bag full of coloured bricks, which need to be sorted. And we all know what happens when a certain super-hero gets his sequence wrong when getting changed in the morning. Once the concepts have been taught unplugged, and practised through creating algorithms, they can be moved to a programming tool and the children taught how they can be applied in that tool, through simple examples that exemplify the particular concept(s). I think that by having been through the process of learning a concept away from a computer, it is much easier for pupils to understand how it works within the chosen programming tool.

Tinker and explore

Yes, I’m still advocating time to simply play within the programming environment. There is so much to be learned from exploring, trying out, and asking the question, “What happens if I do this?” But if this is where the use of the tools starts and stops, that’s when the deeper understanding might be missed. So do allow ‘free play’ time – most of us, in fact, learned much of what we know about the programming tools themselves from doing exactly this.

Copy and change existing code

Rather than starting from scratch (no pun intended) you can provide ready-prepared programs for children to change, just to see what happens or to achieve a particular objective. Some learn-to-program tools work in this way. The step-by-step activities in Code Monkey [ http://www.playcodemonkey.com/ ] have children changing and debugging lines of given code to achieve the goal of the activity.

Of course, you don’t have to rely on tools that have this built-in, you can provide your own programs for children to copy and change, or you could download other people’s code if the tool has an online gallery (providing the terms of the service allow you to do this, of course.)

I think copy/change is particularly valuable when introducing children to how the programming concepts that you may have taught unplugged, are applied in a particular programming tool. E.g. moving from a variable being a cardboard box to a variable being created/named and used in Scratch or Logo.

Predict what will happen

Again, here we are providing the children with code (or code-blocks if that’s the sort of tool you are using) but rather than changing it, we are asking them to look at it and predict what will happen when it is run. So this can be done away from the computer – project some code onto the board, provide print-outs or screenshots, or get the children to share their own code with a learning partner and predict the outcomes of each other’s work. With younger children, this ‘code’ may be a sequence of arrows for getting around a map. Where would the robot end up if it followed these instructions? With older learners you may wish to focus on a particular programming area in these activities, such as variables, selection, procedures etc.

Debug

I’m trying to draw a pattern but something is wrong with my program

As soon as children start creating instructions, they will need to start debugging, in order to find and correct their own mistakes and make their instructions more accurate and efficient. And of course this continues when they start to write their own code (or use blocks.) But we can make debugging the focus of an activity by providing code to the children that has ready-made mistakes. Can they find and correct them? As above, this activity can be started away from the computer, and is likely to be more challenging when the pupil is having to find the mistake by reading the code rather than running it. So prediction is involved here, as well.  You could ask the children to write their own program (on paper, or through a programming tool) with a deliberate mistake and see if their learning partner can find and fix the mistake.

This could be as simple as a wrong turn for a floor robot or more advanced, such as a syntax error in Logo.

I want to draw a square. Where have I gone wrong?

Explaining what you’ve done

Scratch has an ‘add comment’ feature

And really important, in ascertaining the children’s understanding of the programming concepts they have used, is asking pupils to explain what they have done throughout their programs. Can they show where they have used selection, for example, and what the effect of this is? Scratch in particular has an often overlooked feature where a comment can be left next to the blocks of code used in a program. Simply right-click in the scripts area and choose “add comment.” So ask children to label their program to show their understanding behind the code they have produced. Or, if working with younger children and physical programmable floor robots, ask them to tell you what each button press will do as they enter them.

I don’t wish to devalue the activities and projects which children should undertake, where they design and write a program from scratch, to a particular specification. This often takes the form of creating a game or screensaver.  This is, of course, an important part of the work the children will do in computing, and what I have described above can be part of the journey towards these projects or a complement to them. By using programming tools for a variety of activities and foci, in addition to ‘just’ writing programs, we can, I believe, get more from the tools in helping children apply different skills and problem solving approaches, and deepen their understanding of the key programming principles they are using.

The 2014 National Curriculum for primary computing states that children should have “repeated practical experience of writing computer programs.”  This terrified many of us at first as we had visions of having to teach 8 year olds C++ or JavaScript, whilst having no knowledge, experience or understanding of programming ourselves!

It came as some relief when we were introduced to the visual programming languages that we are now familiar with in primary computing lessons. These are generally based on snapping blocks (effectively lines of ready-made code) together in a certain sequence so as to make something happen. Tools such as ScratchJR, Scratch and Blockly, which I’ll refer to as ‘block-based programming’ are ideal for helping children develop computational thinking and logical reasoning, and demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the underlying principals and concepts of computer programming.

But should children in primary schools have experience of “real” coding, using a text based programming language? In these environments, there are no ready-made blocks to snap together, and the code is typed out character by character before being run.

It is important to understand that the primary computing curriculum is not about teaching children a specific programming language

It is important to understand that the primary computing curriculum is not about teaching children a specific programming language, rather than understanding the principals of programming and applying these to solve specific problems and achieve specific aims. This does mean, of course, that they need to use a programming language but I sometimes think that too much importance can be placed on learning the language, rather than learning and then using the principals and concepts through the language (having started the learning ‘unplugged’ and away from the computers!)

So unlike KS3, where it is stated in the national curriculum that students should use a text based programming language, this is not a requirement in primary schools, and generally block-based programming is used.

However, in the right measure, trying out some text-based programming could be a useful addition to your computing lessons or club. By experiencing, for example, what a variable looks like in both a block-based and text-based program, it can help solidify the child’s understanding of what a variable is and how it is used. They also get to experience some ‘real’ coding, which is something they will meet in KS3. I am not suggesting, however, that we move away from blocks in favour of text, or start covering KS3 content in KS2.

If you would like to give children experience of text-based programming, there are some easy ways to try this out, with lots of support the teachers and pupils.

Logo

Some teachers may be familiar with using Logo from their own school days. It is a programming language in which we program a ‘turtle’ (usually just a triangular shape) to move and draw lines, shapes and patterns. It uses relatively plain English commands, which can also be abbreviated and shortened. So a simple command such as ‘forward 100’ can be shortened to ‘fd 100’. Logo is ideal for teaching how, for example, repetition can make our programs shorter and more efficient. A program to draw a square may look like this:

fd 100

rt 90

fd 100

rt 90

fd 100

rt 90

fd 100

rt 90

However, by using a repeat command we can refine the program to:

repeat 4 [fd 100 rt 90]

We have moved from eight lines of code to one line of code, clearly showing how repetition can improve our programming.

There are many versions of Logo available. MSW Logo can be installed to Windows computers, or online versions through 2Simple Purple Mash, J2Code from Just2Easy or Transum can be used through a browser.

Fuze Basic

Freely available to download and install on Windows computers, Fuze is based on the Basic language that we used to use on BBC Computers in the 80s! The Fuze Basic website comes with downloadable lesson plans, and pupils can get started by using ‘Immediate Mode’ through which they can do simple line-by-line programs. They can then enter ‘Edit Mode’ to create and run slightly more ambitious projects.

Rapid Router

Rapid Router is a free, step-by-step approach for learning to code, for children from Year 1 up to Year 6 and even into KS3. The majority of the lessons are block-based, in which pupils program a vehicle to move around streets. The final lessons introduce the Python programming language. Children begin these levels by continuing to work with blocks, but can see the equivalent Python code created below. Again, Rapid Router offers all sorts of supporting materials for teachers, helping them deliver coding lessons without needing a lot of expertise or experience themselves.