Forget Pokemon cards, a new craze is taking off at schools in the shire.
An activity called top coding has caught the imagination of students at Caringbah Public School, with three clubs set up outside class hours to meet the high demand in interest. Top coding sees children learn how to create, or code, games and animations on their computers.
The computer-based activity has spread across the shire with at least eight other schools also teaching their students how to top code this year.
Caringbah Public School teacher Robert Entwistle started a competition for young, top coders this year, and was surprised at the swell in interest during recent months.
“I am surprised at the amount of interest it has had, including the support parents have given in terms of providing money for robotics and computers,” he said. “Also the interest coming from principals from other schools.”
He said he started a competition in June, which was planned as a one-off event, but it quickly turned into more events.
“It was going to be a one-off event but because it was so successful we added two more rounds, then hosted a grand final [which was held yesterday].”
The best coders from the first three competitions in the shire met yesterday at Caringbah Public School, working in pairs to code games and animations.
The winning pair in the Year 5 grade included Lewis Watts and Declan Clarke and the winning pair in the Year 6 grade included Mark Taranellos and Ryley Dickenson. A one-off event in the St George area was also held earlier this year.
Entwistle said the great thing about top coding was the skills the children were learning for future careers. He said that was one of the main reasons he started the initiative.
“I have family friends that work in computer science and I was asking them, because they have children about the same age as my students, what do we need to be teaching kids? And they said coding.”
The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) has supported the local coding competitions this year, providing a judge for each competition.
ANSTO Discovery Centre spokesman Rod Dowler said the skills the children were learning would be very useful for future careers.
“Every day we are seeing that STEM skills will be key to these kids’ jobs of the future and, for a lot of them, the jobs they’ll have in 10 or 15 years don’t even exist yet.”
