Our partners

Switched on Computing has been published in association with some of the country’s leading educational computing organisations to give you the confidence that it is the best resource possible for addressing the new computing curriculum:

• Havering Education Services, who helped us to develop the resource and trial it extensively in schools
• Computing At School, who recommend it because it meets the aims of supporting the teaching of computing science
• Naace, who recommend it because it supports teachers with the new primary curriculum

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Havering Education Services

Havering Education Services helped us develop Switched on ICT (for the primary and secondary phases) and Switched on Computing. They have trialled it extensively within their schools – ensuring that the product is fit for the classroom and has been very well-received by Havering schools.

Havering local authority’s team members Amanda Jackson, Penny Patterson and Dave Smith are very experienced in supporting education establishments with their computing curriculum and strategic leadership requirements – helping many schools to achieve ICT Mark accreditation and transformation through new technologies. They helped to write the CAS/Naace ‘Computing in the national curriculum – A guide for primary teachers’. They were ‘Highly Commended’ in the 2013 BETT Awards for ‘ICT Service and Support’ and were previous ‘Winners’ of the Becta ICT Excellence Awards for ‘Support for Schools’. The team has involvement in many areas of educational technology both locally and nationally – including facilitation of a local Computing at School hub, membership of the Naace Board of Management and judging of the Bett Awards. The Havering team have built a strong reputation for collaborative working with schools and commercial partners alike – nurturing high standards and innovation by encouraging pupils and staff to adopt new technologies to support teaching and learning, as well as providing commercial providers with advice on effective working with schools. Their work is recognised internationally, with regular visits from delegations from overseas. Visit the Havering blog for more information

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Computing At School

Computing At School recommends Switched on Computing because it meets the aims of supporting the teaching of computer science within computing to all pupils of all ages. It supports good practice in teaching the computing curriculum which will help develop computational thinking, describes good pedagogical strategies and offers progression throughout. Further teaching resources are available though the CAS community website.

Computing At School is a grass roots organisation, whose energy, creativity, and leadership comes from its members. CAS are a collaborative partner with the BCS through the BCS Academy of Computing, and have formal support from other industry partners. Membership is open to everyone, and is very broad, including teachers, parents, governors, exam boards, industry, professional societies, and universities. CAS speak for the discipline of computing at school level (including FE), and not for any particular interest group. The CAS community has been instrumental in the development of the new curriculum and are 100% committed to supporting all teachers as they engage with computing, and in particular computer science. It contributes to the national debates and consultation regarding the curriculum, assessment, specifications and resources for teaching and learning. It has the aim of promoting and supporting excellence in computer science education.

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Naace

 Naace promotes the appropriate use of computing to support learning, teaching and school organisations.  Their aim is to support and challenge all teachers and schools and also those who provide services to schools.   Naace have worked with CAS on the guide to the new primary curriculum and, with CAS, also supporting our regional training events on Delivering the new National Curriculum for Computing in Primary Schools.

“Naace is delighted to support the “Switched on Computing” programme provided by Rising Stars.  Naace is a community passionate about the appropriate use of computer technology and to us there is little more appropriate than solving real world problems and making creative solutions, two concepts we recognize to be at the heart of the “Switched in Computing” programme.

Currently, we are seeing a rush at every level to “get on board” with a coding agenda. Powerful arguments for this agenda are being presented at a personal level, a national level and at an international level; many countries now have programming embedded in a national curriculum for young people. In different times and different places, we have taught our children to grow vegetables, build a house, blow a delicate glass, bake bread, create a soufflé or write a story; now we are teaching them to code. However, in teaching them to code and in the creation of a digital curriculum, we are seeing significant variations in the quality of experience offered to young people.

High quality provision, such as that offered by Rising Stars through “Switched on Computing”, offers the potential to raise the bar for all young people, allowing them universal access to appropriate material that recognises we are teaching computing, not as an end in itself but, in order to help our young people craft their future. “
- Mark Chambers CEO, Naace

 

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