Farewell Ms Vanderpuye

Today, we sadly said goodbye to Ms Vanderpuye after nearly 26 years at Oakington.

Ms V as she was affectionately called by all pupils and staff, decided to take early retirement and at a party held in her honour, she remembered the journey Oakington had made to reach its outstanding status in ICT and Computing.

In the days long before USB pendrives and terabytes of storage space, Ms Vanderpuye reminded her guests of what had gone before.

Her interest in computers started as a 15 year old, it blossomed as she got older. One of her first computers was one of the first solar powered calculators which she  still has at home –it has seen better days but still works when she tested it last week, after more than 30years. Some people may not have heard of some the first computers Ms V had owned such as Sinclair’s ZX80, ZX81, Dragon 64, BBC B, BBC Master with PC emulator MS Dos, Acorn computer with RISC OS, before moving onto a Windows 3.1 PC.  All of this was even before the Internet as we know it now.

BBC Master

Acorn with RISC OS

Dragon 64

BBC B

WIndows 3.1

SInclair ZX80

Sinclair’s ZX81

SAMSUNG DIGITAL CAMERA

Ms Vanderpuye thanked the Governors, the SLT and staff and pupils for allowing her the opportunity to pass on some of her passion. Ms V gave a personal thank you to  Mrs Libson for all her love and support she had given her for more than 30 years since they had known each other. She thanked her two network managers, Andrew and Gaddi, without whom ICT & Computing would not be as ‘Outstanding’ as it is.

Ms Vanderpuye said that the highlight of her evening was the fact that so many ex-teachers of Oakington came back to celebrate with her.  There was also a very beautiful performance from one of Ms V’s favourite robots, Bluey with messages from twins RedCandy and RedCurrant too.

Staff and pupils will miss very much Ms Vanderpuye’s enthusiasm and her love for all things ICT and computing. CONGRATULATIONS AND GOOD LUCK, MS V!

 

 

BB8 and Drones

Our robots have some new additions to their family, introducing BB8 and Parrot drones. We are using Tickle app to programme them. RedCandy isn’t too sure about BB8.

Ms Vanderpuye said goodbye to her Nao family and their new additions.

 

‘Future Box’ Project

At the end of last academic year Oakington joined the ‘Future Box’ project, which is a collaboration between designer/technologist Stef Lewandowski, founder of Makeshift and primary school teacher Gavin Summerfield from Heber Primary School in East Dulwich, London.

The aim of the project is to create a prototype a inspirational box for schools that contains amazing gadgets, kits and tools to inspire children to learn about how technology works. All as part of the Computing curriculum. Oakington was keen to explore this knowing how keen pupils and staff were in ‘new technologies’.

Since September Ms Vanderpuye and her Coding Club have been trialling Makey Makey and Ozobots. The club have been amazed at how they have been able to use these seemingly ‘simple’ technologies to program and to create simple codes in the first instance and more complex ones as they have made more discoveries about the two technologies.

The ‘fun’ thing about Makey Makeys has been in creating a piano keyboard with bananas and other everyday items or playing bongo drums with a school tie. How does that work?,  asked one of the children. They soon found the answer when they related what they knew about electricity, conductors, insulators and circuits. As long as they were ‘earthed/grounded’ they could make most things work with the Makey Makey.

When the Ozobots arrived the Coding Club kids couldn’t wait to get them out of the box. Ms Vanderpuye hid one in her hand before gathering all the children around a pod to get them guessing what was in her hand. Given that the club had been discussing what might go in our ‘Future Box’, it didn’t take long for children to guess that it was an Ozobot in Ms V’s hand.

What does an Ozobot do? Well,  this clever little robot uses colour codes (red, blue, green and black )to follow instructions to turn left, right,  move forward, speed, up, slow down etc. and placing various colour combinations on a line you can make Ozobot do lots of fancy things. We have only recently started working with Ozobots so we are still exploring. You can draw you own mazes and paths for Ozobot to follow. As it follows the line Ozobot flashes the colour it has tracked.

We now have Nao robots, Makey Makey and Ozobots in our Furture Box. What would you have in your ‘Future Box’?

 

Leading Leaders Network Visit – Day 2

The final day of the Leading Leaders event was a roundup of the interesting things the group had seen at Oakington. Mrs Libson wished everyone well and took some questions and answers. Mr Smith thanked all the children for their hard work in showing them around, talking about their school and showing off their Computing skills. This was followed by a hands-on workshop with 2Simple Software’s Nigel Canin, looking at some of the latest developments from 2Simple and having a play with 2Code.

 

Makey, Makeys are coming to Oakington

Makey Makey, what is a Makey Makey, I hear you ask? Well – simply FUN technology – Coming soon to Oakington!

Oakington is delighted to have been asked to participate in a really exciting project being run by  Gavin Summerfield from Heber Primary School and some of his partners in the project to engage children in technology in ways you would never have imagined a few years ago.

Makey Makeys are making children let their imagination run wild by using everyday items to create new and exciting technology tools to use in school, at home, everywhere!

Heber Primary School – Read about the project ‘Awesome Box’ Project

 

Nao Robot Maze Challenge

Mr Libson and Ms Vanderpuye over two days were in training on how to take their knowledge, skills and understanding of the Nao robots (RedCandy, RedCurrent and Bluey) to another level. Apart from simple robot behaviours, both members of staff, learned how to change the colour of the robot eyes, use the timeline to animate the robots and get the robots to make choices through asking questions,

The next activity was to work our how to get a blindfolded robot through a maze without touching it or moving it but giving it specific set of instructions in order to arrive at the end of the maze. This was challenging, however we worked it out simply by talking, trial and error. Mr Gavin Summerfield, Assistant Head from Heber Primary school joined us for day two of the training. John Pinkney our tutor was great in facilitating the two-day course giving us an opportunity to explore, experiment and answer the questions we wanted to ask about the robot behaviours.

 

 

An Audience with Marcus Stroud -NFL Jacksonville Jaguars

Wow, wow, wow! The children in KS2 were so lucky this afternoon to have had an audience with Marcus Stroud, NFL Jacksonville Jaguar’s former defensive player. He came to inspire children into playing American football and to see the classes in Years 4 and 5 taking part in the NLF coaching pilot being run in 6 schools. Marcus Stroud focused on  ‘General Good Character traits and its benefits

Marcus, talked to the children in a whole KS2 Assembly to inspire them into working hard, and having a good character trait. All the children were delighted to have met a real pro American football player. It was brilliant! Coach Kenny prepped KS2 before Marcus Stroud’s arrival. During the session children asked Marcus about the things that inspired him to play football etc.

Following this session the team from Oak Manor Radio Network conducted an interview for Channel 1’s Celebrity Corner. Marcus Stroud spoke about his early days in American Football before playing for his first team Jacksonville Jaguars. His message was clear, education was very important! He studied hard and made his grades before playing football. He wanted his mum and dad to be proud of him and they were. When he started playing pro football, he trained for at least 5 hours a day and ate a balanced diet so that he could be able to run fast for playing his defensive position.

 

Recording Confidence

In the last week, Ms Vanderpuye has had new members joining her ICT Club. Not for what you might expect, learning new ICT skills using iPads or laptops but for … recording stories in audio and video.  Children frommainly, Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 have been choosing books from the library suitable for various age groups and are being the ‘Story Tellers’ for the week.

The children have not been worried about making mistakes whilst recording as they know they can edit whatever they do later using their editing skills,  Children are seeing who can get in the studio first to record their stories at play and lunchtimes.

It has been a fantastic way to encourage reading as it has a real audience. The current stories are bing edited band will appear soon on our website in the Library page.

 

Naace ICT Impact Awards – And the winner is…

The Naace 3rd Millennium Conference was held on Thursday 8th -Saturday 10th March. The  awards ceremony was on Friday evening at the end of a day of Keynote presentations, breakout sessions, an exhibition which featured a small number of companies showing off  their new wares.  Interestingly there was an IWB from AVM which integrated the latest Epson short throw projector, at the touch of a button the board rose vertically and horizontally until it was a table, projecting at any angle. It was pretty cool. Old friends from 2Simple were also there to chat about their latest adventure.

I sat at the table with a camera in one hand and a video in the other, nervously waiting for the winners to be announced for each category. Thinking that the primary award would be one of the first announced. It wasn’t! My nerves rattled even more as I waited for my category.  Anyway, in true Hollywood Oscars style the winners were concealed in gold envelop ready to be opened by Bernadette Brooks, General Manager of Naace.

I congratulated Derek Robertson after being announced  the winner of the Post Adviser or consultant or support service Award. Derek is a  leading  adviser on Games based learning in Education Scotland., he sat on the same table.  We had chatted and cracked a few jokes before the photo session with former Secretary of State for Education, Charles Clarke.

The categories for this year were:

• Award for EYFS
• Award for Primary
• Award for Secondary
• Award for Supporting Inclusion in any phase
• Award for Collaborative group project
• Award for ICT Technician of the Year
• Award for Adviser or Consultant or Support Service
• Award for life long achievement

Six very worthy candidates for most categories, I had made up my mind that I would just enjoy the evening what ever happened. I was really happy to have got thus far.  The Primary award winner was about to be announced but first since the judges had had a difficult choice they had decided to award a Highly Commended to Casllwchwr Primary School in Swansea.

Over the next few minutes it seemed like I had stopped breathing waiting to hear who had won the Primary category. OMG! I absolutely can’t believe that I won!  Still shaking with disbelief I passed  my camera over for someone else to continue filming whilst I went to collect my award , I didn’t know what to say. I whispered the Charles Clarke, I’ve never won anything before’ he replied, ‘You deserve it’.

Now is a good opportunity for me to thank everyone. Thank you to all staff at Oakington you have always been open to change and those who said their nice words on video to support this award. Even though I had to edit out some of the content, I still appreciated you doing them for me. Thanks also to Karin Hogh in Denmark and Evelyn Balogun in Nigeria for their encouraging videos.

Thank you Sylvie, my headteacher, for always trusting my ideas and giving me the freedom the explore and innovate!

Most of all Thank You to all the children especially the ICT club children who wrote their own scripts for the video presentation. You are what my efforts are all about! This award would not have been made possible without you. A final thank you to Jane and Mick from the Queen’s Park City Learning Centre for nominating me in the first place.

The Winners were:

The winner of the early years and foundation stage category: Michelle Hill, Deputy Head and ICT Co-ordinator, Leamore Primary School

The winner of the Primary Award: Ophelia Vanderpuye, Head of ICT, Oakington Manor Primary School, Brent

The winner of the Secondary Award: Ben McCarey, Head of English/Lead in Driving New Technologies, The Cooper School, Bicester

The winner of the Post Adviser or consultant or support service Award: Derek Robertson, National Adviser – Games based Learning/Consolarium, Education Scotland

The winner of the Supporting Inclusion in any phase Award: Woodlawn School

The winner of the Collaborative Group Project Award: TeachMeet

The winner of the ICT Technician of the Year Award: Timothy Morton, Network Manager, RSA Academy

The winner of the Lifelong Achievement Award: Lawrence Williams, Lecturer, Brunel University

Special awards were made by the judges to:

Lewis Philips, Pupil at Inverkeithing High School in Fife and Casllwchwr Primary School in Swansea.

Ms Vanderpuye

 

BETT 2012

The Bett Exhibition opened at Olympia from 11 – 14th January. A number of teachers including the ICT team went to the exhibition over three days.

Mrs Griffiths, Mrs Jabble and Ms Vanderpuye went on Friday 13th. As usual the annual exhibition was packed with teachers, headteachers, coordinators and anyone and everyone interested in technology in education. There was just so much to see. We were quite excited about getting inspiration for various new projects we have in the pipeline. Our task was clear, each of our teachers had tasks to complete whilst there.

First on our agenda when we got there was to go to the Naace stand to be presented with our ICT Mark award which the school received last term.On the way to the stand we got a little distracted with this amazing F1 type car simulation. It was brilliant, just to look at it… but before you could say..”F1 rocks!”…Mrs Griffiths had jumped in the car and was ready  to put her driving skills to the test, driving at speeds that went over 1000mph. The nice lady at the stand told her how to keep the car on the road making sure she watched the screen and when to press the red and blue buttons on the steering wheel. Once Mrs Griffiths got the hang of driving the car it was really hard to get her out of it…we were there for ages. I was jealous because time was running out at the presentation time was fast approaching. We said we would go back for me to have a go.

The Naace stand was packed with other schools also being presented with their ICT Mark awards. It was great

to see Oakington Manor’s name on the big screen. We were really pleased to see the headteacher from College Green Nursery and  Mrs Federico from Queen’s Park CLC who had both come to give a cheer for our school achievement. When our turn came Mrs Griffiths took photos and short video clips of our presentation.

The added bonus for our school was that Naace had announced on Thursday the people who had been shortlisted for the Naace Impact Awards 2012. Wow, Ms V was on the shortlist This is an award for making an impact on pupils and other people using ICT.

After the presentation we split up to go and look at different things. We later met up with Mrs Jabble. There was just so much to see. There were also lots of companies who knew our schools and had visited our website. We also heard from Webanywhere that they had received  enquiries from other schools about having their website built  because they were impressed with ours.

We saw a demonstration of the Van der Graaf Generator using a doll and other ways of generating electricity. If you’ve never seen this before the Van der Graff generator creates static electricity that makes your hair stand on end. It was great fun!

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