Category Archives: Computer Science curriculum

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Two CAS London Teach A-Level Computer Science courses in Autumn 2017

Update 18 September 2017: The A2 Projects with Databases & Python course (pink in the diary image below) is now full but we have spaces on the Object Oriented Programming course at QMUL (blue in the image below). If you’re attending the A2DB course you’ll be able to attend the OOP one as well.

Screenshot 2017-10-13 10.57.40

We have two ‘Teach A Level Computer Science’ courses coming up later this year. Please bookmark this page as it will shortly be updated with details of the earlier course (to be held at Queen Mary University of London in October / Nov). The details of the later course (to be held at King’s College London Waterloo in Nov / Dec) are below. Both cost £100 and free places are available for CAS Master Teachers.

  1. Teach A-Level Computer Science: Object Oriented Programming
  2. Teach A-Level Computer Science: A2 Projects with Databases and Python

Please note that these courses are for in-service teachers who are already confident in teaching computing at GCSE level, Python will be the programming language used.

The course dates are arranged so that it will be possible for teachers to attend both courses.

 

1. Teach A-Level Computer Science: Object Oriented Programming

Find out more and book a place

Course dates

  • Wed 4 October
  • Wed 11 October
    [Break – Wed 18 Oct]
  • Wed 25 October
    [Break – 1 Nov]
  • Wed 8 Nov
  • Wed 15 Nov

Location: Queen Mary University of London
Tutor: Dr William Marsh, CAS London

2. Teach A-Level Computer Science: A2 Projects with Databases and Python

Find out more | Apply for a place

Course dates

  • Week 1 (1 Nov 2017) – Single table databases and sqlite3
    [Break – 8 Nov]
    [Break – 15 Nov]
  • Week 2 (22 Nov 2017) – Foreign keys and relationships
  • Week 3 (29 Nov 2017) – Many-many relationships
  • Week 4 (6 Dec 2017) – Developing a project for A-Level Part 1
  • Week 5 (13 Dec 2017) – Developing a project for A-Level Part 2

Location: King’s College London, Waterloo
Tutor: Dr Sue Sentance, CAS London

For more information please contact Jo (j.brodie@qmul.ac.uk)

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Using London’s transport network to teach computing – free resource & workshop (12 June)

Summary

  1. Free London computing resource that uses London’s transport system to teach unplugged computing as well as Python programming – as part of the new London Curriculum
  2. Free teachers’ event on 12 June to demonstrate this resource
  3. It’s also #LondonHistoryDay soon – CAS London / Teaching London Computing has some other resources for your classroom

1. A new resource for computing teachers in London
Someone has come up with the rather lovely and brilliant idea of exploiting (in the best way) London itself as a resource to be used in teaching in schools. Obviously London has lots of history, architecture, transport, science and literary links and these aspects can feed into the curriculum for London schools. I wish I’d thought of it.
Teachers, working with the Mayor of London, have developed subject-relevant London-centric curricular packs for the London Curriculum which are free to access after registering.

Clifford French and Trevor Bragg have created a resource pack – The Connected City – for computer science teachers in London, using the theme of transportation on the city’s roads. Students can use Python to interact with freely available Transport for London data on buses, traffic lights, hire-bikes etc (similar to the way smartphone apps work) but also using by learning about computational thinking ideas that don’t involve programming, such as the unit on pedestrian crossings –

“The role of computational thinking
This unit focuses on road traffic signals in London and how they are used to manage travel by road. This includes buses and cars but also pedestrians and cyclists. After a  general introduction to transport in London students are introduced to an ‘unplugged’ model of a pedestrian crossing signal.”
Source: The Connected City (available from the link above)

2. Free teachers’ event to demonstrate this new computing resource
To accompany this Trevor and Clifford are running a free event for computing teachers, on Monday 12 June, to demonstrate how they can use this resource in their classrooms.

Connected City – New Mayor of London, KS3 Computing Curriculum Workshop
Monday, June 12, 2017 from 4:00 PM to 6:00 PM (BST) London
Room 2.87 Franklin Wilkings Building
Eventbrite tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/connected-city-new-mayor-of-london-ks3-computing-curriculum-workshop-tickets-34465710869

A Hands on workshop, giving you the chance to try out the Scratch and or Python lessons with support, along with fellow teachers to gain confidence, before you use at your school with your students.

For Scratch there will be modelling of Traffic lights and a Pedestrain Crossing.
For Python you will learn about objects, lists and dictionaries.

Transport for London data can be accessed without any code and from a Python program we will look at both.

This course and the resources it uses are available free.

“London is extraordinary. It has a wealth of cultural, heritage and scientific venues. It is exciting and inspiring. It is also a hotbed of invention and creativity. As such, there is no better classroom than London.

The Mayor’s London Curriculum uses the capital as inspiration to bring the new national curriculum to life at key stages 2 and 3. The programme offers free teaching resources, evening events for teachers and exciting educational activities for students.”
Source: The London Curriculum – learning inspired by London

3. #LondonHistoryDay
London’s first London History Day will take place next Wednesday 31 May 2017 but schools are being invited to encourage their students to take part this Friday (26 May) and dress up as a famous historical Londoner.

We thought schools might be interested in London’s history from a computing perspective and have put together this page which talks about computational thinking and computing ideas as they relate to the Romans, Tudors / Stuarts, Victorians, World War 2 and more modern history.

Find out more at London, History and Computing

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Short courses at a glance

Short courses from CAS London
2017 course dates and prices are in brackets, similar prices and dates are envisaged for 2018.

  • KS3 Teach KS3 Computing – January to March
    (8 sessions, £160, 23 Jan to 20 Mar)
  • MA module in Computing Education – January to March
    (10 sessions, £1,150, 17 Jan to 28 Mar)
  • KS4 Teach GCSE Computer Science – April to July
    (10 sessions, £200, 24 Apr to 3 Jul)
  • KS5 Teach A level Computer Science: Algorithms and Data Structures – March
    (5 sessions, £100, 1 Mar to 29 Mar)
  • KS5 Teach A level Computer Science: Object Oriented Programming in Python – June to July
    (5 sessions, £100, 7 Jun to 5 Jul)
  • Diving Deep into Primary Programming – Summer / Winter
    (All-day session, £60, 9 Jun)
  • KS5 Teach A level Computer Science: A2 Projects with Databases and Python – September to November
    (5 sessions, £100, 1 Nov to 29 Nov – register of interest full, please contact Jo Brodie (j.brodie@qmul.ac.uk) for waiting list information)
  • Diving Deep into Primary Programming – Winter / Spring
    (All-day session, £60, tbc)
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Tenderfoot computing twilight sessions in London for teachers (14&27 June) FREE

We’ve split the one-day Tenderfoot session for teachers on Computational Thinking (Unit 2) into two evening sessions running on Tuesday 14th and Monday 27th June, details below. You can attend either session, there is no dependency, or you can attend both.

  • Session One introduces graphs and binary trees
  • Session Two looks at arrays, classic and shortest path algorithms.

Session One: Tenderfoot training – Clever Stuff for Common Problems – Developing computational thinking and an understanding of data structures – Focus on Graphs and Binary Trees
Tuesday 14 June 2016, King’s College London
5-7.30pm, Waterloo Bridge Wing Room G14
Tutors: Jane Waite and Trevor Bragg
Tickets: http://community.computingatschool.org.uk/events/4134

  • 02 Activity: Data structures matter (Spit not so, Knights Tour, Tour Guide)
  • 03 Activity: Many problems, one solution (Map colouring)
  • 06 Activity: Beauty of trees (Binary trees)

“Unplugged puzzles are used to explore abstraction, algorithms, decomposition and data structures. Activities can be used in the classroom the next day. KS3 Attainment targets : use and evaluate computational abstractions, understand several key algorithm.”
Eventbrite - Tenderfoot training - Clever Stuff for Common Problems - Developing computational thinking and an understanding of data structures - Focus on Graphs and Binary Trees for Session One

Session Two
Monday 27 June 2016, Lambeth
[precise location and time tbc]
Tutor: Miles Berry

  • 00 Activity: Peg swap puzzle
  • 01 Activity: Perfect shuffle
  • 04 Activity: Toy problems, real world
  • 05 Activity: The oracle of bacon

[Ticket link not yet available]

“Unplugged puzzles are used to explore abstraction, algorithms, decomposition and data structures. Activities can be used in the classroom the next day. KS3 attainment targets: use and evaluate computational abstracts, understand several key algorithms.”

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CPD day for London computing teachers at the CAS London annual conference

Teaching London Computing’s Paul Curzon and William Marsh will be presenting at the CPD day for London computing teachers at this year’s CAS London conference, £25 for London teachers, £60 for those outside London (BOOK TICKETS). Read on for more information…

Sat 27 Feb

When: Saturday 27th February
Where: London (Gladesmore Community School, Crowland Rd, N15 6EB)
Tickets: £25 (London), £60 (elsewhere) – BOOK HERE
Event flyer: DOWNLOAD and please share with colleagues

Approximate timings of Paul’s and William’s sessions (note timings may change by +/- 10mins).

Paul Curzon
Unplugged Sorting algorithms – 10:00pm
Using Magic to teach computing – 2:30pm

William Marsh
Python Advanced GUI – 12:30pm
LMC 1 – Introduction Afternoon – 2:30pm

Here’s the information from CAS London about the conference –

CAS London’s Regional Conference, a day of CPD for primary and secondary teachers of computing

For those who need to gain confidence to teach programming, those who are brushing up on skills and those looking to find out about recent developments in computer science education.

HANDS ON Workshops, ready to use resources.

  • Select 4 x hour long workshops from 7 workstreams of  more than 28 workshops.
  • Introductory and advanced programming on Scratch, Kodu, Python, Visual Basic, LMC, Java and more.
  • Pedagogy, assessment, exam boards,  magic to teach algorithms, computational thinking, unplugged sorting …
  • Introductory physical computing with BBC Micro:bit, Raspberry Pi and Engduino.
  • Cross curriclar Maths and Scratch, DT and Crumbles.
  • Workshops led by Paul Curzon, Phil Bagge, Mark Dorling, Sue Sentance, Michael Kölling, Rob Leeman (OCR), Matt Walker (AQA) and many other leading CPD providers.

Nominal charge to cover lunch and admin.

We are funded by the Department for Education to support teachers in London, hence the reduced fee for London educators.

Teachers from further afield are very welcome, as are educators working with CLCs, boroughs and Coding Clubs.

Trainee teachers and University/ITT representatives are most welcome and also invited to attend.

At lunch time there will be a market place where voluntary groups, industry and other suppliers will be on hand to share their resources and ideas on careers, coding clubs, ed tech products etc.

If you would like to showcase at the market place please contact jane.waite@computingatschool.org.uk

About CAS London
CAS London, the Computing At School regional centre for London, is run by King’s College London and Queen Mary University of London. It co-ordinates CAS activity in London, supporting teachers of Computing through CAS Master Teachers, Hubs and Lead Schools.
Find out more about CAS and CAS London.

 

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[FREE] BBC micro:bit training for teachers at CAS East London Hub meeting

CAS East London Hub Meeting: BBC micro:bit training [tickets]

Thursday 19 November 2015 from 4:45- 6:15pm, Free.
East London Hub
City & Islington Sixth Form College

BBC micro:bit Training. Hands-on session teachers of year 7’s to find out about using the micro:bit. For further information: Ceinwen Hilton (ceinwen.hilton@candi.ac.uk)

PROGRAMME

Time Topic
16:45 Registration and Refreshments
17:00 Introduction
17:15 Practical
18:00 Feedback

Tickets for this event (free)

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New course date: A-level Computing CPD for London teachers – Wed 7 Oct, 10-week course

We will be running our A-level Computing CPD course again this Autumn for London teachers.

The course will run for 10 weeks from 5pm to 7.30pm on Wednesday evenings from 7 October to 16 December 2015 with a half-term break on Wednesday 28 October (ie a 10 week course running within an 11-week timeframe) in the ITL Building, Queen Mary University of London.

As always the course costs £300 but those teaching in London can take advantage of a 50% reduction thanks to funding from the Mayor of London, ie £150. In addition, with support from the new CAS London hub, we are also making FREE places available for London Master teachers only – please note that we will be requesting evidence of Master Teacher status before confirming your free place. The course will be taught by William Marsh and Trevor Bragg.

Full information and guide syllabus on our A-level Computing page, and there are some quick links to register below. Any questions? Contact Jo (j.brodie@qmul.ac.uk) for more.

Next course(s): 10-week Wednesday evening course: 7 October to 16 December 2015 (half-term 28 October 2015), 5.00pm to 7.30pm. For this course we are making free places available for London Master Teachers (you will be sent an application for to confirm your eligibility).

Eventbrite - A-level Computing CPD - Teaching London Computing & CAS London for a place on A-level Computing CPD – Teaching London Computing & CAS London

Please sign-up to be kept informed of future courses.

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Our next events – one free workshop, one (not free) CPD course for A-level Computing teachers

Here’s what we have coming up so far in August… do also sign up to our mailing list to be kept informed of future activities.

1. Course for A-level Computing teachers in London
A-level Computing CPD August one-week intensive 2015 – from Teaching London Computing
Monday, 17 August 2015 at 10:00 – Friday, 21 August 2015 at 16:00 – at QMUL
This is a one-week intensive A-level Computing CPD course from Teaching London Computing. The course equips Computing teachers with the programming subject knowledge and skills to teach the new A-level Computing curricula.
[More information] [Eventbrite tickets]

2. Free workshop for Computing teachers in London
Using Turtle Graphics to Transition from Visual to Textual Programming
Wednesday, 26 August 2015 from 13:00 to 15:30 – at QMUL

How to transition from visual languages (e.g. Scratch) to text based languages (e.g. Python)?
A hands on workshop exploring the use of turtle graphics for making the transition from visual programming (using Scratch) to textual programming (using Python).

  • Comparing programs in Scratch and Python
  • Setting problems that can be soved in both visual and textual languages

Computers are provided but delegates may bring a laptop if they wish
(with MIT Scratch 2 and Python 3 installed). Some knowledge of basic programming assumed.
[More information] [Eventbrite tickets]

Do I have to be a London computing teacher to attend Teaching London Computing courses and workshops?
While we prioritise London computing teachers we do make space available for those from outside London. For our courses we charge non-London teachers the full price (£300) but thanks to funding from the Mayor of London we’re able to offer a 50% discount to London teachers only (£150). Our courses are aimed at those who are currently (or who are about to begin) teaching the Computing curricula (GCSE and A-level). Contact Jo Brodie (j.brodie@qmul.ac.uk) for further information.