It was during a visit to the CAS conference in 2013 that I became more aware of the Code Club Organisation. As an experienced ICT coordinator in two large London Primary Schools I had often used Flowol as part of the control technology element in the ICT curriculum, so I was keen to find out how this programme ran.
I run the club with the school’s ICT coordinator and we quickly became aware of how children seemed reluctant to make mistakes. They also had problems following the step by step instructions that are provided for each game they make. Observing how the children work has provided me with some very useful teaching ideas which I will be including in our computing and ICT coordinator courses but here are some initial tips.
Some strategies that have worked well
- Printing out the help sheets as a booklet – this helps to prevent children missing steps
- Putting the help sheet up on an interactive whiteboard – if children encounter problems this allows the whole group to discuss how the problem can be solved
As the next half term approaches and the children have now become more settled with handling the software, I am going to take a tip from Yasemin Allsop (see BETT article on my blog) and I will be working on Scratch myself alongside the children. Up until now, I have spent most of the time organising the hand-outs and offering support. Now as we have all got to know each other better, I think it is time for me to try out a few new skills! I suspect they shall soon be helping me!
Testing if the game works
He was delighted to show his finished game
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