Thursday December 13th saw the official launch of the Computing At School Lincolnshire Hub with a meeting of computing teachers from across the region hosted by School of Computer Science staff on Brayford Campus.
School and Sixth Form College teachers from as far afield as Leicester, Skegness and Peterborough as well as from the immediate Lincoln area gathered for the launch of the Computing At School (CAS) Hub which is a national initiative sponsored by the British Computer Society (BCS) to help promote best practice in the teaching of computing at schools and to push forward the Government agenda to drive the focus of the national curriculum away from ICT to a more Computer Science approach. As a member of the BCS “Network of Excellence” in the Computer Science field, SoCS were invited to create a Lincolnshire Hub centred on the University and staff have worked hard to create and promote what is hoped to be a continuing forum for the promotion of the subject of computing across the region.
The initial meeting concentrated on proposals from the Education Secretary Michael Gove to promote Computing Science in Schools, and how the University of Lincoln could offer reskilling opportunities for current ICT teachers to enable them to become Computer Science teachers in the future. Future meetings are already in the pipeline with possible future topics for investigation including the gender imbalance in the technology field; enhancing the classroom experience; promoting the need to ‘think’ in compulsory education and bringing Python into the classroom. The meetings are informal and allow like-minded professionals to promote best practice, to get ideas of how to improve teaching of ‘tricky’ subjects and to provide a networking opportunity for teachers across the region.
One attendee commented that “it was good to hear [SoCS] enthusiasm for working with local schools”, adding “we really value working with the University to make teaching of Computer Science a real success.”