We are pleased to announce that we are renewing our partnership with Oak National Academy in England to provide an updated high-quality Computing curriculum and lesson materials for Key Stages 1 to 4.
New curriculum and materials for the classroom
In 2021 we partnered with Oak National Academy to offer content for schools in England that supported young people to learn Computing at home while schools were closed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
In our renewed partnership, we will create new and updated materials for primary and secondary teachers to use in the classroom. These classroom units will be available for free on the Oak platform and will include everything a teacher needs to deliver engaging lessons, including slide decks, worksheets, quizzes, and accompanying videos for over 550 lessons. The units will cover both the general national Computing curriculum and the Computer Science GCSE, supporting teachers to provide a high-quality Computing offering to all students aged 5 to 16.
These new resources will update the very successful Computing Curriculum and will be rigorously tested by a Computing subject expert group.
“I am delighted that we are continuing our partnership with Oak National Academy to support all teachers in England with world-leading resources for teaching Computing and Computer Science. This means that all teachers in England will have access to free, rigorous and tested classroom resources that they can adapt to suit their context and students.” – Philip Colligan, CEO
All our materials on the Oak platform will be free and openly available, and can be accessed by educators worldwide.
Research-informed, time-saving, and adaptable resources
The materials will bring teachers the added benefit of saving valuable time, and schools can choose to adapt and use the resources in the way that works best for their students
Supporting schools in England and worldwide
We have already started work and will begin releasing units of lessons in autumn 2024. All units across Key Stages 1 to 4 will be available by autumn 2025.
We’re excited to continue our partnership with Oak National Academy to provide support to teachers and students in England.
With our new free ‘Introduction to web development’ path, young people are able to learn HTML and create their own webpages on topics that matter to them. The path is made up of six projects that show children and teenagers how to structure pages using HTML, and style them using CSS.
With all the website tools available today, why learn HTML?
Webpage creation has come a long way since the 1990s, but HTML is still the markup language that is used to display almost every page on the World Wide Web. By knowing how it works, you can deepen your understanding of the technology you use every day.
If you want to build your own website today, there are many tools to get you quickly up and running. These tools often involve dragging and dropping predefined elements and choosing from a wide collection of themed looks. Learning HTML and CSS skills is important for web designers, developers, and content creators who want to build unique webpage designs that make their content stand out.
The path helps young people express themselves through their own webpages
With our new ‘Introduction to web development’ path, we want creators (the young people who use our projects) to be able to quickly make fantastic-looking websites that follow modern best practices, while they also learn how HTML and CSS work together to create a webpage. Creators write their own HTML to develop the content and structure of their webpages. And they customise our pre-built CSS style sheets to get their webpages to look like they imagine.
This really is a fun and unique approach to learning HTML and building a webpage, and we think young people will quickly engage with it. They start by finding out how to structure pages using HTML before applying CSS styles that bring their pages to life. Through the six projects, they build all the skills and independence they need to make webpages that matter to them.
Accessibility first
We believe that young people should find out about website accessibility right from the start of their learning journey. That’s why the path for learning HTML shows creators how they can make their websites accessible to all their users regardless of the users’ needs or digital devices.
That’s why our new path uses semantic HTML. Older HTML tutorials might show you how to structure a webpage using tags like <div> and <span>. In contrast, the meaning and purpose of tags in semantic HTML is very clear. For example:
<main> is used to tag the main content for the webpage
<footer> is used for content to be displayed in the footer
<blockquote> contains a quote and typically the author of the quote
<section> contains a portion of content that usually sits within the main part of the webpage
Semantic HTML supports accessibility because it allows people who use a screen reader to more easily navigate a webpage and read it in a logical way.
Another element of accessible design that the path introduces is the colour combinations used on webpages. It is really important that contrasting colours are used for the background and the text. High contrast makes the text more readable, which means the webpage is more suitable for visually impaired users.
It’s very important to use contrasting colours on a webpage
The path also shows creators the importance of adding meaningful alternative text for images. Good alternative text helps visually impaired users, and users who have a very low bandwidth and therefore turn images off in their web browser.
With the path, young people will learn how to design webpages that respond to the device of the user
Finally, our path for learning HTML introduces creators to the concept of responsive web design. Responsive design is helpful because websites can be viewed on thousands of different devices. Some people view pages on large, high-resolution monitors, and others view them on a mobile phone screen. We show learners how they can use HTML and CSS to make their pages responsive so they display in the way that works best for the specific screen on which a user is viewing them.
Key questions answered
Who is the ‘Intro to web development’ path for?
We have written the projects in this path with young people of around the age from 9 to 17 in mind.
HTML and CSS are text-based markup languages. This means a young person who wants to start learning HTML needs to be familiar with typing on a keyboard. It would also be helpful to have experience of using the copy and paste function, which is useful when changing the layout of a page or copying similar pieces of code.
If a young person is unsure whether they have the right skills to get started with the path, they can first try out a short ‘Discover’ project. With this Discover project, young people can choose between the themes ‘space’, ‘sunsets’, ‘forests’, or ‘animals’ to see how they can create their first webpage in just five steps. (We’re still working on the ‘Discover’ project type, so if you have any feedback about it, let us know.)
Young people can experiment with our Discover project to build their own webpage in just a few steps
What will young people learn with the path?
Creators will learn how to use HTML and CSS to build webpages that have:
Images
Lists
Quotes
Links
Animations
Imported fonts
They will also learn about how to make their webpages accessible to all through use of:
Semantic HTML
Alternative text for images
Colour contrast checking
Responsive design (means the webpage adapts to the device on which it is viewed)
How long does the path take to complete?
We’ve designed the path so young people can complete it in six one-hour sessions, with one hour for each project. Since the project instructions encourage creators to upgrade their projects, they may wish to go further and spend a little more time getting their projects exactly as they imagine them.
What software is needed to create the projects in the path?
Young people only need a standard web browser to follow the project instructions and use an online code editor to create their webpages.
There are 28 other step-by-step projects for creators to choose from on our website. They can browse through these to see what cool things they’d like to make and what new skills they want to learn.
Build a webpage for Coolest Projects
If your kid is proud of the webpage they create with the final ‘Invent’ project in the path, they can share it with a worldwide community of young creators in our free Coolest Projects tech showcase. Project registration will open again in spring 2023. You can sign up to hear news about the showcase on the Coolest Projects homepage.
Details about the projects in ‘Intro to web development’
In the ‘Anime expressions’ project, creators build and style a webpage for an anime drawing tutorial. They learn how to use HTML tags to structure a webpage; use CSS to apply layout, colours, and fonts; and add images and text content to their page.
Explore project 2: Top 5 emojis
With the ‘Top 5 emojis’ project, young people create a webpage displaying their top 5 list of emojis. They learn how to add emojis, create a list, use a block quote, and animate elements of the page.
Explore project 3: Flip treat webcards
With the ‘Flip treat webcards’ project, creators make a webpage showing a flip card with a treat from around the world. They use CSS to make the card flip over when a user interacts with it. Creators also learn how to apply gradients and import fonts from Google Fonts.
Design project 1: Mood board
This Design project gives creators the chance to develop the skills that they have learned in the three ‘Explore’ projects. With the ‘Mood board’ project, young people create a webpage to display a mood board for a real or imaginary project. The mood board could, for example, show ideas for a party, a fashion item, a redesign of their bedroom, or a website; or it could show reminders of all the things that make them happy.
Design project 2: Sell me something
The ‘Sell me something’ project is another chance for creators to practise the skills that they have gained in the ‘Explore’ projects. They create a webpage to ‘sell something’ to the webpages visitors. It could be anything they like, from an object they love, to a game they like to play.
Invent project: Build a webpage
The ‘Build a webpage’ project is the final project in the path and allows young people to independently build a webpage on any topic they’re interested in. This Invent project offers info cards to remind creators of the key skills they’ve learned with the path, and a light structure to support them through the process of making their webpage. Young people are encouraged to showcase their final webpages in the path gallery to inspire other creators.
Our mission at the Raspberry Pi Foundation is to help learners get creative with technology and develop the skills and confidence they need to make things that matter to them using code and physical computing. One of the ways in which we do this is by offering learners a catalogue of more than 250 free digital making projects! Some of them have been translated into 30 languages, and they can be used with or without a Raspberry Pi computer.
Over the last 18 months, we’ve been developing an all-new format for these educational projects, designed to better support young people who want to learn coding, whether at home or in a coding club, on their digital making journey.
Our new free learning content for young people who want to create with technology has a 3-2-1 structure (click the image to enlarge)
Supporting learners to become independent tech creators
In the design process of the new project format, we combined:
Leading research
Experience of what works in Code Clubs, CoderDojos, and other Raspberry Pi programmes
Feedback from the community
While designing the new format for our free projects, we found that, as well as support and opportunities to practise while acquiring new skills and knowledge, learners need a learning journey that lets them gradually develop and demonstrate increasing independence.
Therefore, each of our new learning paths is designed to scaffold learners’ success in the early stages, and then lets them build upon this learning by providing them with more open-ended tasks and inspirational ideas that learners can adapt or work from. Each learning path is made up of six projects, and the projects become less structured as learners progress along the path. This allows learners to practise their newly acquired skills and use their creativity and interests to make projects that matter to them. In this way, learners develop more and more independence, and when they reach the final project in the path, they are presented with a simple project brief. By this time they have the skills, practice, and confidence to meet this brief any way they choose!
The new content structure
When a learner is ready to develop a new set of coding skills, they choose one of our new paths to embark on. Each path is made up of three different types of projects in a 3-2-1 structure:
The first three Explore projects introduce learners to a set of skills and knowledge, and provide step-by-step instructions to help learners develop initial confidence. Throughout these projects, learners have lots of opportunity to personalise and tinker with what they’re creating.
The next two Design projects are opportunities for learners to practise the skills they learned in the previous Explore projects, and to express themselves creatively. Learners are guided through creating their own version of a type of project (such as a musical instrument, an interactive pet, or a website to support a local event), and they are given code examples to choose, combine, and customise. No new skills are introduced in these projects, so that learners can focus on practising and on designing and creating a project based on their own preferences and interests.
In the final one Invent project, learners focus on completing a project to meet a project brief for a particular audience. The project brief is written so that they can meet it using the skills they’ve learned by following the path up to this point. Learners are provided with reference material, but are free to decide which skills to use. They need to plan their project and decide on the order to carry out tasks.
As a result of working through a path, learners are empowered to make their own ideas and create solutions to situations they or their communities face, with increased independence. And in order to develop more skills, learners can work through more paths, giving them even more choice about what they create in the future.
More features for an augmented learning experience
We’ve also introduced some new features to add interactivity, choice, and authenticity to each project in a path:
Real-world info box-outs provide interesting and relevant facts about the skills and knowledge being taught.
Design decision points allow learners to make choices about how their project looks and what it does, based on their preferences and interests.
Debugging tips throughout each project give learners guidance for finding and fixing common coding mistakes.
Project reflection steps solidify new knowledge and provide opportunities for mastery by letting learners revisit the important learnings from the project. Common misconceptions are highlighted, and learners are guided to the correct answer.
At the start of each project, learners can interact with example creations from the community, and at the end of a project, they are encouraged to share what they’ve made. Thus, learners can find inspiration in the creations of their peers and receive constructive feedback on their own projects.
An open-ended upgrade step at the end of each project offers inspiration for young people to give them ideas for ways in which they could continue to improve upon their project in the future.
Access the new free learning content now
You can discover our new paths on our projects site right now!
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