New College joins Digital Schoolhouse Programme

New College has become the first Further Education College to become a Digital Schoolhouse (DSH) and is the only one based within the Swindon and Wiltshire region.

Digital Schoolhouse, a pioneering programme which is led and delivered by games and interactive entertainment trade body Ukie, has gained national and international recognition for its initiatives in the teaching of ICT and Computer Science to primary school pupils and the wider public audience.   Digital Schoolhouse recently announced PlayStation® as its lead partner for the new academic year and an extension of the programme to 15,000 pupils across the UK.

Each DSH is based in a secondary school or college and aims to work with a network of primary and secondary school teachers to deliver creative and cross-curricular computing lessons.  

Tony Gilbert, Computing Lecturer and DSH Lead Teacher at New College Swindon says,

“New College is proud and excited to be a Digital Schoolhouse.  We believe that computing should be innovative, creative, inspiring and challenging.  We already run a number of computing courses, activities and initiatives for our own 14-19 students and have strong links with secondary schools.  Becoming a DSH will help us be a leader in training primary and secondary school teachers to upskill and become more creative in teaching the Computing curriculum.”

Even Primary School has become the first school to participate in the project with New College and will see Year 6 pupils and staff visit New College next month for their first session.

Alison Lowe, Headteacher of Even Swindon Primary School, says,

“Even Swindon Primary School is delighted to be the pilot school for the Digital Schoolhouse programme at New College.  We are committed to providing the very best possible education for all of our children and we view this initiative as a great opportunity to enhance their learning in this important and fast-developing area of IT”

New College will be delivering a series of training and enrichment sessions to visiting schools and teachers across 15/16.   Any primary or secondary school wishing to become involved can find out more at www.newcollege.ac.uk or email [email protected]