Creating

What is creating?

Creating is about planning and making things. Some endeavours involve various media each providing an outlet for creative expression. Software and digital media allow scope for creativity and, by mastering software tools and digital devices, we develop confidence, competence and independence which we can use playfully, experimentally and purposefully in the expression of our ideas and insights.

Programming is itself a creative process. We have ideas about what we’d like to make or solve, analyse the problem, design, write and debug the requisite code and evaluate what we’ve created.

A still image from an animation of a poem.

An animation of a poem.

Why is creating important?

Computer science isn’t just an academic subject: it’s a practical, applied engineering discipline, creating solutions to real-world problems and providing opportunities across the arts. Since the cracking of wartime codes there’s been an astonishing expansion in the range and complexity of created computer systems: in number-crunching and accounting, telephony, personal computing, human-genome mapping, space shuttles, smart cities, art installations, gaming environments and online spaces … We create programs which solve problems or exploit opportunities. The process of making things is also a powerful means of learning.

A black and white photo of the Colossus code-breaking computer, 1943.

The Colossus code-breaking computer, 1943 (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons).

What does creating look like in the Primary curriculum?

Through the programme of study for computing, Primary pupils become skilled at designing and creating high-quality products and content using digital technology, including programming. Creative expression turns passive learners into active learners, and projects with a context meaningful and relevant to pupils are likely to be particularly engaging. The children could work with images, animation, games, virtual environments, music … perhaps even 3D printing. Sharing the results with a wider community engenders a rewarding sense of pride which can be particularly motivating. Encourage the children to critique work, always seeking to improve upon it – common practice in software development. Giving time to progress through the stages of a project fully, exploring its planning, implementation, revision and evaluation, provides good experience for this sort of work elsewhere.

3 - 5 years

Pupils start to create things in art and craft projects. They can explore the process of creating in a making area as they assemble, cross-stitch or even bake. In computing, they may create shows with programmable toys or use simple art software. We encourage pupils to be imaginative, to create simple plans, to invest care in their work and to think how it might be improved.

5 - 7 years

Pupils should be taught to ”use technology purposefully, to create, manipulate, organise, store and retrieve digital content.” Provide opportunities for them to create and debug their own programs. Outside of computing, in art, music or D&T, ask them to think about creating something and how they’ll work through the necessary steps, decomposing a complex process into several planned phases. They could design scripted animations in an online programming environment like ScratchJr, using a timeline or storyboard to work out their algorithm before converting this into code for the sprites. Challenge them to have programmable toys perform a story or choreographed dance: they’ll need to work together to agree characters, make props like mats and backdrops – perhaps even clothes – plan the movements, write the code and debug it.

A photo of a teacher writing on a flipchart to prepare a storyboard with her young class.

Model how to create a storyboard - the plan for an animation.

7 - 11 years

Plan a design–make–evaluate project for D&T, drawing out the parallels with computational thinking. The project might be to arrive at a musical instrument. Pupils will need to break down this complex task into smaller stages: they’ll plan their design (an abstraction), source their materials (using decomposition again to identify the different components), assemble those into the finished result (a systematic, step-by-step approach – an algorithm) and test the instrument (evaluation). In computing, pupils should be taught to ”select and use a combination of software (including internet services) on a variety of digital devices.” Provide opportunities for them to design and create programs, systems and digital content, collecting, evaluating and presenting information.

Organise for the pupils to tackle a large programming project – even if relatively simple, it would typically be decomposed into stages such as: plan; design; graphics; animation; sound; debugging; sharing. A project like this lends itself to team-based collaboration over several weeks; the project-management skills involved are like those in commercial software development. For example, a scored quiz could be devised whereby questions become harder or easier depending on how well the user is doing. The program might use random numbers to select questions held in an external list. Other ideas for such a project are:

A simple control project to navigate a programmable toy around a simple maze.
An interactive art project where screen patterns are generated in response to different sound inputs.
An animation of a joke, story, greeting card or information (perhaps a simulation of a natural phenomenon).
A real-world problem such as a sound monitor, a tour guide or an app to manage a school event.
A computer game such as a quiz.

A control project in which youngsters make their own Lego WeDo toy.

Find out more about creating / Downloads

Creative Computing (opens in a new window)

Scratch starter projects (opens in a new window)

Projects from Kodu (opens in a new window)

DevArt: art made with code (opens in a new window)

Activities that are great to get you started:

These activities develop pupils' understanding of creating.

ScratchJr Knock-Knock Joke Activity

Age:5-7 years
Concepts / Approaches: Programming, Creating
Curriculum Links: English

In this activity pupils, in pairs, create a simple animation program of a knock-knock joke. They use a storyboard to create their design, write the code in ScratchJr, debug and evaluate.

The ScratchJr Knock-Knock Joke Activity has been rated 5 stars

Animated Poem Decomposition

Age:7-11 years
Concepts / Approaches: Programming, Decomposition, Creating
Curriculum Links: English

Pupils create an animation of a poem using Scratch to learn about decomposition. Decomposition is breaking something down into smaller parts to help solve a problem or undertake a task.

The Animated Poem Decomposition has been rated 5 stars

Classroom Sound Monitor

Age:7-11 years
Concepts / Approaches: Creating, Programming, Outputs, Inputs, Control
Curriculum Links: Science, D&T

Pupils create sound monitors, which are examples of control programs – they take information from an input sensor (a microphone), and use this information to alter the output of the program (displaying a warning message if pupils are too noisy).