Suffolk & Colchester Computing Hub

In collaboration with Norfolk Computing Hub

Helping You Teach Computing

Helping You Teach Computing...

Welcome to the Computing Hub for Suffolk and Colchester, led by West Suffolk College - Part of the Eastern Education Group. As your local curriculum hub for computing, we provide local training and support for teachers, schools and colleges. We are proud to be part of the National Centre for Computing Education and to support schools and colleges across the region to provide a high-quality computing education for all young people.

The National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE) is funded by the Department for Education and supporting partners and marks a significant investment in improving the provision of computing education in England. It is delivered by STEM Learning and is made up of the TeachComputing programme, the Isaac Computer Science Platform and the Computing Quality Framework.

Borrow Physical Kit

Direct Support for Teachers

Not sure where to Start?

These toolkits provide pathways to help identify resources and CPD to suit your needs

Primary toolkit

Secondary Toolkit

Or, you can follow the quick steps get started with the CQF (Computing Quality Framework) Self-Review tool.

TWO

Assign a level for each of the seven strands of the CQF

Ideally, in conjunction with senior leadership, add a self-grade level for each of the seven strands (level 1-5 / each level has an easy to follow descriptor).

Add some text in each of the level boxes to reflect where you think you are at this point.

This simply kickstarts the process of engagement with the hub and gives you access to a whole range of free resources.

TWO

THREE

Choose Courses, Direct Support or Other Resources

From the website, choose one or a combination of the following, or contact us for a one-to-one or group chat to help us direct resources and CPD to suit you.

For example…

Self-review at departmental or individual level; understanding which courses to access; signpost to wider initiatives and events; action planning, subject leadership and more…

Access the CQF self-review tool here

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Wider Opportunities...

Frequently asked questions...

We (The Suffolk and Colchester Computing Hub) are responsible for supporting all schools in Suffolk and Colchester.

The Norfolk Hub is responsible for supporting its schools within the Norfolk boundaries. 

(However, we work extremely closely together, communicating daily with the Norfolk Hub as part of the Suffolk, Norfolk and Colchester collaboration to increase capacity, share good practice, develop economy of scale, breadth, diversity and depth of skills).

The National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE) is funded by the Department for Education and supporting partners and marks a significant investment in improving the provision of computing education in England. It is delivered by STEM Learning and is made up of the following programmes:

We work closely together to ensure the best possible spread of expertise and sharing between schools across the three areas. Local courses are delivered by experts who are local to Suffolk, Norfolk or Colchester, and these expert PDLs (Professional Development Leads) will also be the people who can help you directly, outside a course environment. The courses advertised on our secondary or primary pages have usually been scheduled to serve common local needs, or needs of clusters of schools. You can choose a local face-to-face or live remote course, or visit teachcomputing.org for the full range of courses and resources delivered at regional or national level. Or, you can email [email protected] to book time with a PDL to help you through the CQF Self-Review, or to discuss any aspect of comptuting teaching.

When you may need to access a broader range of courses or dates, you can visit TeachComputing.org and choose ‘Courses’.

Any course led by any hub across the country will be consistently led by high quality Professional Development Leads (PDLs) who are experienced and have been through the same training.

The main difference between regionally or nationally led courses and locally led courses is that that locally led courses are delivered by PDLs who are local to Suffolk, Norfolk or Colchester and are familiar to us as part of our hub team. This can be helpful when it comes to local knowledge, linking schools together who can mutually support, or understanding local culture and contacts.

The support that is offered alongside, or outside a course environment can be accessed from the local Computing Hub.

In this case, you can email [email protected] to request a chat, or book a chat with Rob Walden, the Computing Hub  Lead by emailing [email protected].

The National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE) Computing Quality Framework is intended to help schools review their progress in developing an exemplary computing curriculum. The framework takes schools through each aspect of computing, helping them to access the NCCE’s wide range of report functions, and resources for progress. The development of the framework was funded by the DfE .

We can focus support  based on the outcomes of the self-reviews of schools in their regions. 

You can access the CQF here.

We aim to keep the core computing development offer as clear as possible, on these pages (Secondary, Primary, Booking Kit and this page).

However, the Digital Signpost is for everything else… a plethora of fantastic content, news, “how to…” and other links and intiatives.

Click here to visit the Digital Signpost.

CQF Admin Troubleshooting: If you have registered for the CQF (Computing Quality Framework) but you receive a “Waiting for Admin to approve….” message, it is likely to be because someone else in your organisation has previously signed up as administrator. If you know who they are, you can ask them to approve you. Otherwise, send an email to [email protected] with “Please reset the CQF Administrator email for XXXXX School to my email XXXXXX@XXXX”. The STEM Learning team are usually quick to action this reset.