The headmistress of Cambridge’s only girls’ school was guest speaker at a national three-day conference .jpg)
about computer science and education held in London on 31 January.
Charlotte Avery, headmistress of St Mary’s School, Cambridge, addressed an audience of more than 1000 people to discuss the benefits of delivering an exciting, accessible and vital computer science curriculum.
She explained the way in which St Mary’s responded to the statements made by the government last year calling for a major overhaul of ICT teaching.
The changes introduced include offering computer science as a GCSE subject and providing computer programming as one of the schools extra-curricular clubs, as well as extending the programme of talks from visiting local technology companies to St Mary’s students.
Charlotte Avery said: ‘I was delighted to speak at such an exciting exhibition on this important subject. Computer science has gone from strength to strength at St Mary’s and our students have fully embraced the introduction of a new computer science GCSE and the new technology club.
NET Gadgeteers. As headmistress of a girls’ school, I cannot stress enough how important it is to have more female role models in computing but unless we supply our students with the opportunities at school then they will not feel confident to pursue a career in this industry.’
The Powering Learning conference organised by BETT, a global community where individuals discover technology for education and lifelong learning was held at the Excel Centre in London from the 30 January to 2 February 2013.
It was backed by Computing at School an organisation who believe that every child should study computer science at school.