The Department of Education, in conjunction with the Kusuma Trust and the Gibraltar University, recently hosted a 3-day in-service on Computer Science.

Professor Stephen Hailes, Rae Harbird and David White from University College London delivered the course to a first cohort of 22 teachers, representing all local schools. It is expected that other cohorts will follow: 97 teachers have expressed an interest in extending their learning of coding and computational thinking. The course has been prepared and delivered in a way that it will empower teachers to lead initiatives in this field on returning to their schools.

During the course teachers discussed and analysed the way ahead in the teaching of Computer Science and the impact that it will have in many aspects of the teaching and learning that is currently happening in our schools. They also explored and fine-tuned skills associated with algorithms, programming and robotics.

It has not all been about sitting behind a laptop: the lecturers skilfully brought the programme to life by asking teachers initially to “stand in” as robots before building them for real and getting them to follow instructions.