- 13 Jan, 2013
- read
From September 2014, the UK required children from 5 to 16 years to be taught a computer science curriculum. Up to that point, many teachers had previously only taught Microsoft office skills and had no previous related education.
Personal notes
I worked with CPD for teachers, a Bristol based training company, developing, testing and delivering a range of training days for teachers across the UK. As well as transferring knowledge, teachers often needed a lot of encouragement and ‘ready to deliver’ ideas to try with their classes.
I particularly enjoyed coming up with fun activities and then testing them with local schools. After writing the activities up they became part of the courses.
Using a Raspberry Pi computer to take aerial photos
Processing sound files into jewellery
Participant feedback
Over 3000 teachers participated. Average training rating was 4.9/5.
- Trainers were all extremely knowledgeable, friendly and supportive.
- Throughly enjoyed the day. Matt helped us to gain huge amounts of knowledge about programming in primary schools.
- The trainer was first rate. Training overall was excellent.
- Very skilfully accommodated and differentiated for students with very different levels of knowledge
- The trainer - Matt was superb! Very patient, friendly and very good! all the activities in the day were very well organized and were relevant.
References
Matt developed 6 courses for us during the 2013 push for computer science to be taught in UK schools. His incorporation of innovative and fun activities worked well with both teachers and children. He delivered the courses to over 3000 teachers and was consistently one of the highest rated trainers we have worked with. I would highly recommend Matt as someone who can develop and deliver world class training materials.
Matt Thurling
CEO CPD For Teachers