About Coombe

Coombe Girls’ School Leads the Way in IT   

Coombe Girls’ School in partnership with the University of Surrey’s Department of Computing has successfully trialled the videoconferencing technology.

The technology called ‘Access Grid’ has been used to connect the University with Coombe Girls’ School, this means that academics and industrialists at the university and at collaborating companies have been involved in discussions sessions with students to talk about topics that demonstrate the challenges, opportunities, and substantial rewards of a career in IT(information Technology).

The falling number of IT graduates in recent years has been identified as a potential crisis for the future of the computer industry by the President of the British Computer Society. The Head of Computing at Surrey, Professor Steve Schneider, believes that ‘demonstrating the excitement of Computing to younger students, and the wide range of career opportunities that a degree in this professional subject area offers, might offer a solution’, and to do this necessitates ‘a long-term view of nurturing and sustaining such engagement with the subject’. The trail is part of a project sponsored by the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Information and Computer Sciences, and by the University’s Widening Participation initiative.

The videoconferencing technology has helped provide support for GCSE and A’ level lessons in Computing and ICT by being used in activities such as presentations, project work and teacher professional development. Andrew Martin at Coombe says "The interactive sessions, related to the curriculum, of database and web technologies – has demonstrated the challenges and excitement of Computing”.

Ends

For more information, or to arrange photography contact:

Fran Ford (Press Officer)

Tel: 020 89421242

Fax: 020 89426385

Email: fford1@rbksch.org  

Text to be supplied.