This Challenge Pack, from the British Science Association, aims to give students aged 11-16 and their teachers and educators support to create a science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) project that they can enter into the National Science + Engineering Competition.

Through creating a project, young...

The resource includes Scratch blocks which can be printed and laminated to allow children to create block algorithms visually and in a hands-on way. A great resource to introduce the idea of Scratch blocks to Key Stage One students in the hope that they will become familiar with the system when they reach Key Stage...

Two different sets of printable Scratch blocks that could be used for display or for unplugged programming in upper key stage 1 classrooms as an introduction to programming.

Alec Jackson is the author of the Scratch block cutouts resource.

James Holmes, Gary Setchell, Keith Madderson and Cobie van de...

A booklet containing lots of generic programming theory. The topics include:

• What is a program?
• High level languages and machine code
• Design methodologies
...

This article from the CS4FN Magazine, looks into the ideas surrounding Intellectual Property, copyright, copyleft and patents and how these all apply (or don't) in the realm of computer programming and software. These ideas can be used as...

This booklet consists of 16 introductory programming challenges, some of the challenges also provide further extension challenges, for every challenge there is a "Self Review" section which asks students to comment on whether they managed to complete the task successfully, whether they had any errors initially and...

This resource consists of an information sheet detailing various methods for validating user input in Python, these come in the form of a table consisting of some code in one column and an overview of what the corresponding code does. There is an associated zip file with code examples in it and a presentation which...

ScratchJr is an introductory programming language that enables young students to create their own interactive stories and games. Students snap together graphical programming blocks to make characters move, jump, dance, and sing. Students can modify characters in the paint editor, add their own voices and sounds,...

This Barefoot activity for young programmers exploits the sequencing and timing of joke-telling to help students learn good programming techniques. After planning an animation using a storyboard technique they then code it using the Scratch Jr app, and debug it. Tips for supporting the less able, as well as...

Scratch is widely used in primary schools to teach children basic programming. This resource goes deeper, making use of the familiar Scratch environment to take students deeper into programming concepts such as:

• Algorithm design
• Parallel and sequential instructions
• Event-driven...

A series of five lesson plans aimed at students with no knowledge of Python. In the description it is stated that depending on the students' level of ability these might be adapted to take up to eight lessons. The resource contains some discussion about how and why one might want to start using Python as their...

This resource uses the version of Minecraft that comes pre-installed within the Raspbian operating system for the Raspberry Pi. As such a Raspberry Pi is required to use this e-book. Minecraft: Pi Edition comes with a powerful Application Programming Interface (API), which allows students to hack and make entire...

In this resource , students can get started and are guided step-by-step through the process of creating all sorts of projects using Scratch including games, animations, quizzes, electronics circuits, and more. Although originally written for the Raspberry Pi all the projects can be ported to other platforms (except...

This resource for VEX IQ Modkit helps students to understand the basic principles of using blocks of code to create a programme. The Modkit blocks have been reproduced so that they can be printed and used by students for discussion and when planning their code. This resource contains a classroom presentation...

This paired-programming activity from the Barefoot Computing project focusses on sequences in algorithms and programs.

Children create an animation of a Viking raid – ideally they will have previously studied Vikings...