Physical computing in primary schools

• How creative are primary-aged children with technology, and how does this change as they move into secondary school? 

• What agency and confidence do they have when they work with and talk about computers, especially physical and tangible devices? 

• How do primary-aged children respond to physical computing lessons? 

• How do teachers feel about teaching computing with physical computing devices in the classroom? 

These questions are some of those we are asking as part of the new Exploring Physical Computing in Primary Schools project which started in March 2024 and will run for five years. This is an important longitudinal study that has been funded by the Micro:bit Educational Foundation, the BBC and Nominet, and we expect the results to inform the use of physical computing in schools in the future. Although the study refers frequently to the use of the micro:bit, the work relates to all physical and tangible devices and their connection to creativity, use of technology in general, children’s confidence as digital citizens, and parents and teachers’ role in their development. 

This year we are collecting baseline data from children between roughly 7 and 10 (years 3-5 in England and Wales, P4-6 in Scotland and Northern Ireland) and their teachers. This will inform future iterations of our study and we will be running repeat surveys in 2026 and 2028. For this we would love your help. 

We have devised a simple activity using the micro:bit, because we know that the BBC have distributed thousands of class sets through the NextGen programme, which means many schools around the UK now have a set. The activity is followed by a short set of questions for children, and a questionnaire for the teacher to complete.  Full details are on this page. We hope this might be a fun activity for your children if you have a lesson or half a lesson to spare and can squeeze it in. We are giving away a £20 Waterstones voucher to the first 25 teachers who complete this, alongside running a prize draw to win a set of computing-related books for your school that all teachers can choose to be entered into.

To take part you just need to sign up at the bottom of this page and let us know whether you’d like to do everything paper-based or online.  To help you with the activity, Jessie has recorded a 2-minute video explaining what you’ll need to do.  We are also on hand to help you if you need a quick call with us or email support! 

If you are a primary teacher and you can't do the activity with your pupils, we'd still love to hear your perspectives: there is a survey just for you here! 

Thanks in advance! We will be sharing the results on CAS and  on our website when they are ready! If you have any questions contact us at rpcerc-enquiries@cst.cam.ac.uk 

Sue Sentance and Jessie Durk

University of Cambridge