Today I’ve been to a very special Code Club assembly, to present a certificate to my class for completed their first term. This term we covered a program called Scratch which helps to teach the basic concepts of programming in a fun way by creating interactive games.
Over the school term I’ve taught a variety of projects on of them was to create a boat race, the idea is to design the course and boat then place obstacles and speed boosts around the course. Then navigate the boat around the course and reach the end whilst racing against a clock.
<iframe frameborder="0" height="402" src="https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/embed/63957956/?autostart=false" width="485"></iframe>
I felt really proud of my class today and very honored to be there to hand out their certificates.
Each one of them has done a brilliant job grasping the programming principles, and help me to learn more about the types of problems that crop up while learning to code.
It’s a great skill to have and I hope those moving to secondary school continue to learn programming, at the very least it helps greatly to think about solving problems in a different way.
Earlier this week I was invited to the school to do a careers question and answer session along with other professions so the children could get an idea about a variety of different career options available to them.
The children were put into groups of 2 – 4 then went to each adult and asked their questions.
I was asked a bunch of questions such as “do you like your job?” which I replied I love my job! And “What’s the best part of your job?” I paused and replied “getting an idea then being able to build it and see other people using it on a daily basis is really satisfying”.
I enjoyed the experience, thankfully so did the kids, today I received 2 hand written letters from 2 children thanking me for coming in to talk to them. I felt overwhelmed receiving them!
"I want to be a programmer after talking to David about his job." - Y4 child.
— Rokeby Park Primary (@RokebyPark) July 7, 2015