College students teach the next generation on GM Digital Skills Day

Hollin Primary School welcomed students from Hopwood Hall College on Friday 7 February for the first ever Greater Manchester Digital Skills Day.

IT students and staff from Hopwood Hall College visited their neighbours to teach year six pupils about basic coding and how they can be used in robotics.

Backed by the Greater Manchester Combined Authority as part of a drive to get people of all ages excited about digital skills and highlight opportunities to grow and showcase their talents, GM Digital Skills Day provided the perfect platform for two of Middleton’s best education providers to work together.

Laptop-controlled robots and Raspberry Pi mini-computers proved to be a big hit with the primary school class, with many students impressing Hopwood Hall College’s staff and students with their knowledge and skills.

Hollin Primary School Head Teacher, David Fenton, was eager to continue working with Hopwood Hall College after the day’s event. He said: “I’m very keen to bring in specialist curriculum for our pupils and thanks to Hopwood Hall, today has been a great example of how it can benefit primary education.

 

 

“Year 6 really engaged with the digital skills session, our pupils have been commenting about how much they enjoyed learning about robotics and getting to meet older students.

“It was fantastic to welcome Hopwood Hall’s students and staff, I hope we can continue to work together more to further develop the skills of the area’s youngest learners.”

Hopwood Hall College IT students, Kyle Pelham, 18 and Leyton O’Day, 18, relished the opportunity to pass on their skills to some of the hungriest young minds.

“It was a really rewarding experience, the class really engaged with what we were doing and showed an interest in learning even more. Some of the kids’ knowledge was amazing, the was one boy who was already making his own PC games. The future looks promising and I hope we can do more activities like this.” said Kyle.

Classmate Leyton said: “I would agree with that. The school was really nice, the pupils and their teachers gave us a round of applause at the end which felt great and really made me feel like we had done something good.

“Hopefully, we’ve inspired them to pursue a career in IT too.”