NORFOLK GOVERNORS' NETWORK

As you may have seen from recent coverage on the BBC, there is an increasing push within schools to teach computing as well as ICT.  Where ICT focusses on teaching pupils to use technology, for example in using spreadsheet, computing is about writing computer programs.  These skills are at the heart of the computer software industry - a major part of the UK economy but one which at risk if we start to fall behind countries like the USA, India, China and Brazil.

Computing At School is a national organisation setup to promote the teaching of computing in schools and a group (known as a hub) has recently been setup in Norfolk, bringing together schools, industry and the UEA.  They are organising two things in the Spring term 2012 aimed at promoting computing in Norfolk high schools.

• A competition for Key Stage 3 pupils to develop a simple game - with great Lego Mindstorm prizes for the winners.
• A "learn Visual Basic" nightclass at Thorpe St Andrew - aimed at teachers with no prior programming experience and teaching them the basic skills so they can teach the programming tasks required by GCSE Computing.

Both of these are free and to find out more go to the Norfolk CAS website at : www.groupspaces.com/ncas.