At Minehead Middle School, pupils build upon their existing knowledge of computing to become confident users of technology. We are a ‘Lead School’ in the Computing at Schools Network of Excellence, as well as being a ‘Kodu School’ (an accolade awarded by Microsoft) and a TeenTech Silver Centre of Innovation and Creativity.

Curriculum:

All children at Minehead Middle School study Computing for a minimum of one hour per week, with all departments contributing to the enhancement of pupils’ computing experience in a wide variety of other ways too. 

Facilities and Resources:

Technology is used throughout the school to enhance children’s learning. All teachers have an iPad that can be used by individuals or connected to their interactive whiteboard to develop skills and understanding. There are three ICT suites across school which can be booked my staff members at any time to provide opportunities to access ICT in other areas of the curriculum. We also have a set of Lego Mindstorms robots which are used to learn about programming and robotics.  

Chromebooks

We are very fortunate to be able to provide all of our lower school children with a Chromebook in order to support their learning both in school and their homework.  Teaching staff are adept at using Google Classroom to compliment their teaching delivery and the children are given plenty of opportunities to use this technology to understand both the computing curriculum and the wider influence of technology in our lives.

Events and competitions:

We try to involve the children at Minehead Middle School in many national and international competitions, so the children can share their experiences and skills with the rest of the world. Competitions include:

• Bebras Challenge – a competition sponsored by Google and the University of Oxford that involves solving problems using computational thinking skills in a fun and engaging way

• BAFTA Young Game Designers – a competition that inspires young people to create, develop and present a new game idea to the world.

• Computer Science Education Week in December – an initiative dedicated to inspiring children and adults to understand computer science

• TeenTech – a competition to help young people understand the real opportunities available in the contemporary STEM workplace and engender some excitement about technology and entrepreneurship. In 2018, two students won their category in this competition and were invited to Buckingham Palace to be presented their award!