This week had one of those titles which either excites you or makes you want to crawl into a hole… “An introduction to programming.”

Before this session I would not have had a clue how to teach a lesson on programming, but we got to experiment with different programmes and apps such as Scratch, Scratch junior (using symbols rather than words), Daisy the dinosaur and Bee bots. These are all reasonably self-explanatory and with time to explore how to use these, children will be able to create their own game or debug pre-made games.

Once programming is broken down into being algorithm (with a fun fact that all the names are just named after philosphers e.g. Mr Algorithm!) and code. It seems a lot simpler when it is broken down into two steps that we have already learnt about!

I like how this is open to all children, and children with EAL are still able to use the programmes such as Scratch (in thier home language) or Scratch junior (due to the symbols representing the words.)