Department Staff

Mrs P. Keane (Head of Department)

Mrs L. Kearney

Mrs L. Curran-Malone

Introduction

At Key Stage 3 all students undertake computing within St Mary’s. This innovative course allows students to develop their computational thinking an area which has shown to enable students to solve bigger problems throughout the whole curriculum and in life. This is a more efficient and effective way to problem solve and is not just for coding.

So what is Computational Thinking?

Well it is a collection of diverse skills to do with problem solving that result from studying the nature of computation. It includes some obviously important skills that most subjects help develop, like creativity, ability to explain and team work. It also consists of some very specific problem solving skills such as the ability to think logically, algorithmically and recursively. It is also about understanding people.

Computer Science is unique in the way it brings all these diverse skills together. At Key stage 3 we introduce a range of mini group projects. Groups are set problems and we develop the skills of computational thinking throughout years 8-10. Computational Thinking is developed along with our coding using a wide range of software.

Over the last 3 years we have seen the engagement of students especially girls grow as we have introduced coding through games, web design and art utilising student’s creativity as well as their logical thinking skills. We will be uploading some examples of the work undertaken throughout the year.