Literacy from Scratch

Literacy from Scratch” is a response to the United Kingdom (UK) government’s initiative to develop computer programming skills in both the Primary phase of education (pupils aged 5-11) and the Secondary phase (aged 11-18). The project has several related aspects: it involves the reworking of Primary and Secondary Initial Teacher Training (ITT) programmes at Brunel University, through which Postgraduate students are taught how to use the MIT Scratch programming language, to create sustained and animated narrative work. This work has also been developed by a whole year group (187 Year 8 pupils aged 12-13) at a local London secondary school. Support materials for creating these animated narratives are being developed at both institutions (the school and Brunel University), and are sent by email to a school in Prague, Czech Republic (CZ) where, with the assistance of both the teaching staff and student teachers at the Faculty of Education in the Charles University in Prague, a local Prague Basic School is undertaking the same project with several groups totalling 45 Year 3-7 pupils (aged 8-13). “Literacy from Scratch” is also, therefore, a response to the existing situation regarding the provision of ICT education in the Czech curriculum for Primary Education.