When I was at school, speculation about “what we’d be when we grew up” was confined to a large but relatively unchanging list of careers (on my list was a psychologist, a librarian and an air stewardess, none of which I did but all jobs that still exist). In comparison, today’s students have a working life ahead of them that most likely includes jobs that haven’t been conceived as yet; a ‘physical workplace’ that is defined by technology; and multiple changes of career (these speculations make for interesting reading).
If you’re wondering just how different things might be in the future, and what that means in the classroom today, take a close look at the instructions on the whiteboard in the photo below – ‘Create three sprites (one drawn)’ and ‘Code your sprites with motion’ – what?!
Year 5 and 6 students are undertaking coding classes and share some of their experiences so far –
On Thursdays this term, years 5 and 6 have been going to the library to get lessons in coding from Scope IT. Scoper Michael, Scoper Sadia and Scoper Uday are the teachers.
We have learnt about movement blocks that we use to run a program. This kind of education is very useful for kids futures because the world is becoming very technologically advanced.We have learnt how to make and use pixel art and to make 3D printing. Kew finds it the most exciting part of coding.
We have talked about repeats, values, and variables which makes our work very ‘block efficient’ so we can use the least amount of code blocks for our target. This means it also teaches us maths, making it a two in one. We talked about loops in everyday life-like sleeping, coming to school and breathing and blinking.
We have a load of fun at coding and everyone learns something new every week.
By Oskar, Damon and Gautam, 6CW