Year 7 Robotics Club

The main thrust of the event is to address gender stereotypes and misconceptions in coding with a whole school launch followed by a series of classroom based activities. A Specialist Computing STEM Ambassador has been requested to attend the event at the beginning and primarily address the girls from our Key Stage 2 classes (8-11 year olds). They will talk about the importance of STEM in the workplace environment and the practical application of coding in a career-based context. Following the initial launch, Key Stage 2 teachers (8 classes) will follow-up by adjusting their weekly timetable to allocate sessions to delivering an exciting opportunity to fully explore how coding is used in the workplace environment. The opportunity will help to give the girls in our school a global view and help to bring coding to life with real examples to make programming relatable and much more exciting too. Due to our school demographic and catchment area, there are a number of Pupil Premium children (defined as being from low-income families) who will stand to benefit substantially. They will have an opportunity to hear from an expert in their field which will inspire them to seek out opportunities linked with STEM which they may have previously thought to be unattainable. The event will be shared with parents via our Seesaw communications app, school website and newsletter and in person celebration sessions.

Description We aim to stimulate and inspire a passion for computing by launching a computing/coding fortnight encompassing engaging and interactive whole school activities. This fortnight will be kickstarted with a whole school, semi-competitive event. Mixed teams of KS1/2 children will take part in unplugged activities which will not only use and develop key coding skills but will also engage children in collaboration, communication, problem-solving and debugging. Children will read pigpen codes, use binary language and create bitmap images. We will use our outdoor evironment to involve the children in other types of code - semaphore code, mapping codes. After the launch, children will participate in classroom activities, within their own classes over the fortnight. Achievements of this fortnight will be shared and celebrated through our seesaw communications app, school website and newsletter and in person celebration sessions.

We aim to inspire enthusiastic learners with an interest in coding to participate in a weekly coding club. We aim to particularly focus on encouraging military children to join the clubs and be involved in a range of activities using both unplugged and physical resources. The children will showcase their work to parents and the school community by creating and coding games for family and friends to play.