GE takes coding to the kids

Oh to be a primary-school kid again. Specifically, a kid at Yarra Primary in the inner-city Melbourne suburb of Richmond. With dynamo principal Tracy Hammill at the helm, the school is already a member of Melbourne University’s Excellence in STEM Education (ESTEME) program. So when GE came knocking with the opportunity for Yarra Primary to be the pilot school in its coding program—which began with GE employees’ kids earlier this year—“we grabbed it with both hands,” says Hammill. “It was serendipitous because we were just starting to talk about a coding program, and in walks GE!”
GEreports checked in on the Yarra Primary at the beginning of the fifth week of the program, during which 130 children from years three to six are being taught the MIT Scratch curriculum for an hour each Thursday. “We’re getting into problem-solving and debugging now, which requires thinking at quite a high level,” says Peter Buultjens, who teaches a years three-four composite class. “There were only three students in my class who’d done any kind of coding before.”

“The MIT Scratch program develops the foundation of coding and the ideas behind computational thinking, logically taking big problems and breaking them into a series of smaller ones and solving them to get the end product,” says Emma Milburn, project manager of employee experience for GE Australia and New Zealand. “It gets children to think about how to solve problems, for example if they have an idea for a game, they need to work through which blocks will get them the end product they desire.”

GE Volunteers program, which around the world finds innovative ways to give back to their local community. They bring in their laptops to top up the school’s own equipment.

Buultjens says the coding is even helping to bring other lessons to life: “We’ve been doing angles in maths, and I was sitting with a student in the coding session and we were talking about turning an avatar 90 degrees, so that mathematical thinking is in there.”

How about we let these coding kids take the floor: What do they think about learning coding?

“It’s fun and creative. I enjoy playing around and learning stuff as well.”

— Kasia, 8

“Everything coding is awesome and a good skill to have.”

— Jonah, 8

“We got to learn all these things like how to move characters; it’s fun because it was something new to me.”

— Ava, 9

“You get to learn how to move things in special ways and learn more about computers. It is cool because some people might not even know what a computer is.”

— Fraser, 10

“You can make an invention on a character, and even make it move. Instead of playing someone else’s game, you can make your own and play it.”

— Faye, 9

“I like learning how to be creative. I also like to make new things.”

— Rahul 8

“I enjoyed learning all this amazing stuff that most people don’t know how to do and we are lucky to be here to learn Scratch and other things.”

— Ella, 8

“I enjoy debugging because it got my brain thinking.”

— Max, 8

“I like everything about it!”

Kobi, 9

“You get to have lots of fun because you learn more and more things each time.”

— Leilani, 8

“I now want to code for my job when I grow up. It’s very fun and people get rich because of coding.”

— Liam, 9

“I like learning to code because you can do anything!”

— Olivia, 11

“Your creativity can really expand and is set free.”

— Bess, 11

“I like solving bugs because it helps me understand computers more. And I like creating something new.”

— Gabby, 12

Visit the National Science Week site for science-celebrating events and activities in your local area.