Wednesday 16th October saw the first Computing Subject Leaders Network Meeting at The Education Space. We welcomed a number of schools from across the borough for an informative hands-on session.

The session was split into 3 parts, the first of which saw the subject leaders thinking about their goals for the academic year ahead and the challenges that they are currently facing in their role. We shared ideas and problem solved in groups, utilising each other’s skills and experiences from different schools. As part of this, we looked at an action plan and mapped out some steps to achieving our goals which included thinking about who would support us and also what success would look like.

The second part of the session covered cross-curricular computing links. Subject leaders had the opportunity to play a times table game with the programmable floor robot ‘Pro-Bot’. This resource is fantastic for using across the curriculum although it is a computing-based resource. Story sequencing, map skills and literacy activity ideas were also shared and subject leaders found useful practical links to use across their own curriculum. Another excellent resource shared was Book Creator which gives the opportunity for children to create their own digital books. Again, this has many useful cross-curricular links as well as being an engaging tool for writing.

Finally, we welcomed Bradley Dardis from LGFL. subject leaders were talked through the wonderful free resources that LGFL has to offer as well as Bradley showcasing the new dinosaur resource. Subject leaders were shown some excellent coding resources within BusyThings and J2e which cover many computing curriculum objectives.

We look forward to next term’s Computing Subject Leaders Network Meeting to find out how we managed to progress the ideas shared and further supporting each other in the creative ways we are utilising computing throughout the curriculum.