Barefoot Buzz: What’s New in Computing

Stay in the loop with the latest Barefoot updates, events, and inspiring stories from classrooms across the UK.

Stay logged in for the latest resources and news!

Welcome to Barefoot Buzz, your go-to spot for all the latest happenings in the Barefoot Computing community. Whether it’s exciting new resources, upcoming events, or inspiring stories from teachers making a difference, this is where it all comes together. Check in regularly to stay connected, discover what’s new, and see how Barefoot continues to support primary computing across the UK.

Barefoot Live Lessons

Exploring the Micro:bit

Dive into the exciting world of micro:bit with our live lessons, designed especially for teachers who have micro:bits but aren't sure where to start. These sessions are a fantastic way to introduce the device to your pupils, allowing them to explore its inputs and write their own programs. With fun and interactive activities, students will master essential skills like downloading programs to the device. They'll also get hands-on experience using the micro:bit’s sensors to understand selection and evaluate innovative solutions to environmental challenges. And as the perfect next step, we invite you to join the CAS Physical Computing Competition. Let's inspire the next generation of tech-savvy problem solvers together!

CAS Physical Computing Competition

Join us for an exciting walkthrough on how to produce entries for the CAS Physical Computing Competition! We'll recap pupils' understanding of inputs, outputs, sensors, repetition, and selection, building on the comprehensive skills covered in our exploring the micro:bit live lessons. Students will evaluate the effectiveness of solutions created by others and be introduced to a new problem, sharing ideas about possible solutions. They'll plan how to use the micro:bit to tackle this problem, coding or designing their entry. Alternatively, pupils can identify their own problems to solve. Each school can submit one entry per category for the competition. For more information, please visit the CAS PCC Webinar Blog. Let's inspire creativity and innovation in your classroom!

Alan Turing Day

Celebrate Alan Turing Day with us and dive into the fascinating life of Alan Turing! Discover his pivotal role in cracking the Enigma code and explore various types of ciphers. Students will use these ciphers to read hidden messages, following Turing’s approach to try and crack the ciphers created by others while also attempting to design their own uncrackable cipher. It's a fantastic opportunity to engage with history, mathematics, and cryptography in a fun and interactive way. Let's decode the past and inspire the future together!

Barefoot’s Birthday Bash

We celebrated our tenth birthday last year and to celebrate we invite some of our friends to a celebration event. Here we celebrated the impact that Barefoot has had over the last decade and went back to the classroom and used some of most popular activities. Find out more in this blog post on the Computing at School website.

Click here to read the Blog

Resource Groupings Update

We have added a new section to our resource groupings pages (5 - 7, 7 - 9, 9 - 11). The new section, Teacher Resources, contains links to additional support materials like guidance documents, display resources and Barefoot x Teach Computing Maps.

Ages 5 - 7

Ages 7 - 9

Ages 9 - 11

Resource of the Month

This month’s chosen resource is Abstraction Unplugged Activity.

This resource helps pupils understand the concept of abstraction by drawing (or modelling) quick sketches of animals for their partners to guess. Want to take it further?  Try our online game "Barefoot Zoo" where pupils need to apply their understanding of abstraction to help the zoo keeper.

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