Lessons summary
This series of 6 lessons is aimed at pupils in the first year of secondary school. Students are introduced to the core concepts of computational thinking, programming and computer systems through unplugged activities and learning with the BBC micro:bit. No prior learning is assumed and this is an ideal introduction for students to ensure they have a shared understanding of these important elements of computing.
The lesson sequence includes:
- Computational thinking: paper aeroplane algorithms
- Computational thinking: prototyping
- Programming: modifying code, testing & debugging
- Programming: iteration & selection
- Computer systems: parts of a system
Learning objectives
- understand and apply the fundamental principles & concepts of computer science.
- gain practical experience of writing computer programs to solve problems.
- evaluate and apply information technology, including new or unfamiliar technologies analytically to solve problems
- be responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology.
Additional skills
Problem-solving, collaboration, creative thinking.
You will need
Downloadable resources:
- Lesson plan
- Lesson slides
- Student handouts
Other resources:
- colour marker pens
- glue (optional)
- headphones
- microphones (optional)
- paper - large sheets
- paper - rough
- paper - writing
- pens
- scissors
- screen recording software (optional)
- stickers (optional)
- sticky tack
- sticky tape
- tape measures (optional)
- video cameras (optional)
Lessons created in partnership with Nominet
This content is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) licence.