On the 1^st February 2024, Bushey Meads School had the second Enrichment Day for this academy year. The computing department was assigned to do some fun IT STEM projects with the Year 8 students. The computing department decided for the Year 8 students to create an animation project using drag-and- drop programming style.

The Year 8 students worked either individually or in groups of two to create an animation in Scratch. They have a variety of choices to choose from ranging from creating an animation of a cat flying past buildings, making an animation of talking cartoons or creating a simple T-REX game.

Most students took the challenge to create the animation or game by themselves without any assistance either from their peers or teaching staff. They were to watch a tutorial and then came up with the animations. I am pleased with the Year 8 students’ learning and working attitude on this Enrichment Day.

At the end of the one-hour session, all students manage to create an animation or game. Some students added creativity in the animation by making a witch sitting on a broom flying past city buildings. Some boys completed the T-REX game and they were proud of their achievement. Some students created speech bubbles and the person talked to you and then flew off. Some girls decided to learn AI using Scratch.

The students thoroughly enjoyed the activities and were very proud of their final work that they were keen to show the teaching staff their final products. As a teaching staff myself, I am also very pleased with the Year 8 students’ achievement and behaviours on that day.