Teaching Primary Programming with Scratch

Year Pupil Book 4 (age 8-9)

Bagge Phil

These books, classroom-tested and perfected by Phil Bagge through his website code-it.co.uk and published in conjunction with Hampshire Inspection and Advisory Service (HIAS), aid teachers in providing Key Stage 2 pupils with an exciting and challenging computer science curriculum.
They can be used to supplement existing programming modules or as a complete KS2 computer science program of study. They contain a series of programming projects that gradually introduce pupils to algorithm design and evaluation, generalisation and decomposition. Pupils will learn how to use sequence, repetition, selection and variables through becoming creators of a wide variety of programming projects. Maths, literacy, humanities, gaming, music and control skills are all put to the test.

There are four pupil workbooks to provide structure, resources and home learning links. These are designed to work in conjunction with the teacher book. In addition, there are also two home learning books that have been devised for children to learn programming outside of school. A growing bank of online videos are also available, designed to help teachers improve their own skills and take full advantage of the crosscurricular benefits of developing depth in programming.

The Scratch programming language, widely recognised in schools, is freely accessible online or as a download and is the ideal place to begin programming.

About the author

As a Computing at Schools Regional Coordinator and Primary Computing Master Teacher, Phil Bagge has been sharing his expertise with the teaching community for well over ten years. Phil was involved in creating and refining the new Computing Curriculum through the BCS and CAS. He currently teaches computing science in three Hampshire junior schools where he has created a curriculum that covers all the objectives of the new National Curriculum.