Wealden Times | WT179 | January 2017 | Health & Beauty supplement inside

Education
Technology in Schools
Just how much screen time for children is too much? And how can we keep up to date with the
fast-changing world of technology in schools? Wealden Times asks two head teachers for their views
Photo: FreeImages.com/Shamseer Sureash Kumar
David Clark
Headmaster Battle Abbey School
What range of technologies do your students have
access to in the classroom on a daily basis?
There is so much scope in computing and we, in the
computing & ICT department have focused on making
our lessons fun and informative. We use both hardware and
software to achieve this. We have used Lego in our lessons
from Key Stage 3 right up to Sixth Form. We find that
students can’t resist playing around trying to make things
work. We also run a good range of free IT based Extra
Curricular clubs such as Minecraft and also participate in
the annual Lego League Competition. We use hardware
such as Raspberry Pis (a fun way to learn about complex
programming such as the python language), LEDs, buttons
and sound to create different systems. We were also part
of the BBC Microbit initiative and continue to use this
online resource in our Key Stage 3 lessons. Music, photos
and video are also a part of our lessons and we are looking
forward to incorporating 3D design into the curriculum
later this year and using the school’s 3D printer.
How do you keep up to date with the fastchanging
technology world?
At Battle Abbey School, the Computing & ICT department
has always been full of innovative thinkers who regularly
achieve outstanding results. We have eagerly incorporated
a range of exciting tasks into our lessons to comply with
the new Government initiative for computing in schools.
This year in our Key Stage 3 lessons we have incorporated
elements of Computing and ICT into their practical
lessons. We have also added a theory element where
they learn about the history of computers, binary and
algorithms. We regularly incorporate the ‘hour of code’
into our KS3 lessons which is another fun initiative and
we offer a useful introduction to programming. Our
Computing teachers participate in regular training courses
and a number of them are examiners which means they
are right up to date with what examiners expect.
We have been lucky to be part of a number of projects,
too. In 2015 a group of Battle Abbey students were involved
in a Google Rise project call Arrastre where ‘computing
and dance collide!’ The dance department were also
involved and we worked with the leader of the project,
Genevieve Smith-Nunes. The students involved learnt
about wearable technology and how it is programmed,
and this is something we have incorporated into GCSE
Computing lessons. Genevieve has recently approached
the school with another exciting project which we hope
to start working on in the coming year. We have many
interesting speakers from various business and technology
backgrounds visiting the school as part of our careers
schedule and plan to have even more speakers next year.
135 wealdentimes.co.uk