Programming Hierarchy
There is some lack of guidance on how we should progress through a curriculum focused on programming. Clearly the complexity of the programming must build naturally with the students experience. We think one of the key ideas is to ensure that the language structure scaffolds correctly without too many different formats. We do not want the students to suffer from cognitive overload because they are being presented with too many options. The choices for programming we would make are:
| Ages 4 to 6 | Arrow and simple turn based commands as indicated in BeeBot |
| Ages 6 – 9 | Introduction of stepped arrow commands and exact angle turn. Also repeat can be introduced |
| Ages 9 – 11 | Introduction of more abstract programming with Textease and Scratch |
| Ages 11 – 14 | Expand Scratch to cover all basic logic functions and control interactions. |
| Ages 14 -16 | Change Scratch to a full procedural language such as JavaScript and Python. There are great translators between SCRATCH and Python currently under development. Watch this space! |
