cultivating digital skills
Teaching of computing is in crisis with 40 % of the Government quota for computer science teachers unfilled in 2013. Education is at the core of the problem as it is clear that teachers are struggling to adapt to the IT curriculum.
Furthermore, pupils have only one 45 minute ICT lesson a week - whilst they have over 14 weeks holiday per year. In contrast, working parents have just five weeks holiday.
It is certainly true that young people are consuming sophisticated tech games, but they lack the skills to create them. One factor for this is that after school coding clubs are oversubscribed and currently Code Club lacks 500 volunteers.
Surf and Turf aus to address this - it has access to an open source, curated curriculum from - Code Club, CC4G, Mozilla, e-skills and CoderDojo.
The way surf and turf operates
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65 Day camps nationwide which all have IT hubs and are inside UK Youth Centres.
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Encouraging young people to develop ‘digital making’ interest and cultivate coding skills.
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Supplying the opportunity to explore broad science, technology, engineering, maths and the chance to meet role models.
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Offering a healthy balance of physical sport, teambuilding and communication activities.
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Inspiring young people through a peer–to-peer learning platform, whilst tracking their learning progress.
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Signposting parents, teachers and children to their next steps in terms of digital progression both online and locally offline.
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Developing online challenges and courses appropriate to the individual’s interests and level.
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Surf and Turf will open monthly drop-in taster & alumni sessions.
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The length of these sessions will be two-three hours, free and volunteer led, providing a meeting, idea and sharing community for young people.
Scalability
Camps use low cost venues, pay two facilitators living wage, supported with experienced tech and teaching volunteers.
Parents pay same rate as for a local sports camp, of around £3 per hour.
Evidence – the third camp sold out four weeks in advance. Venue and digital apprentice and volunteer partnerships have been set up.
Peer learning & sharing platform
This programme aims to support 80% of students completing a camp, via the online platform and alumni groups, to continue with digital making activities plus impact a much wider online community to become digital makers
Franchise model
Trained facilitators deliver camps at existing venues such as outwards bounds centres. It has been piloted this at UK Youth Avon Tyrell centre. Camp sold out; they would like to run more.
In-school delivery
Immersion weeks to schools or Pupil Referral Units.
There is an agreement to use Apps for Good to pilot in other locations.
