Case study: Skills and coding

With the UK’s increased focus on technological skills, Lamlash Primary School in North Ayrshire, Scotland, decided that our students needed some coding experience, but we wanted to find a way of showing them just how the skill can be used to engage their various interests and abilities.

The students at Lamlash are avid users of apps, games and programmes, but never seem to really create anything new and had little to no idea of how computers actually work. This made me worried that they were purely consumers of technology, rather than producers.

I had done a small amount of coding at school myself using BBC microcomputers, which helped to inform my understanding, and I wanted to share this insight with the children. In order to address both of my concerns, I began looking for a project that would allow them to experiment with technology, while inspiring them to creatively explore the subject.