Becki Bawler has been involved with Technocamps for about 6 years. Having qualified as a French teacher but with a little IT experience and an interest in the subject, she became the IT teacher and used support from Technocamps to run more computing based activities for learners at her school. Becki also attended an Introduction to Python workshop a few years ago and has used Technocamps expertise for a range of year groups and with lots of different projects from micro:bits to Lego to GCSE Computer Science Greenfoot. Many of these have been face-to-face projects but the school also had Technocamps involved virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic when schools were only partially open for learners.

Since engaging with Technocamps, Becki has become more confident in her own abilities (or lack of them!), and she now sees computing skills as problem solving for the students as well as for herself, with them often succeeding where she still struggles! She has broadened some of the physical computing that she does in her class now and she makes this a part of KS3, in particular with the exploration side of the project being as important to her and the learners as the actual computing code itself.

In Becki’s experience, learners always find the start the hardest as they don’t know what to expect and always think it will be tricky – especially when they see that she has got the Technocamps experts in to help! But once they have gotten over the initial fear and worry about the expectations, they soon get involved and there is a clear buzz in the room – even sometimes with the Year 11 Computer Science boys, who are notoriously unenthusiastic about everything! Learners particularly enjoy the problem solving approach and love to see physical computing come to life when the Lego moves or the code works.

Becki recommends Technocamps to peers at other schools, especially with the new Science and Technology AOLE leaning more towards the computing and computation aspects which many teachers struggle with defining and exploring with classes. She finds Technocamps resources clear and well prepared, our Delivery Officers professional and welcoming to the classes, and acting as great role models for aspiring computer scientists.