In Term 2, Matt Harrison, our new Digital Technology Curriculum Leader, introduced a pilot Drone programme to Year 9 and 10.

In Term 2, Matt Harrison, our new Digital Technology Curriculum Leader, introduced a pilot Drone programme to Year 9 and 10. Using a collection of Tello & Parrot Drones the Year 9-10 students learned both how to pilot and how to program these drones.

“This is an exciting new area for students to develop their critical thinking and problem solving skills in a context that is both real and useful to our rural community.” Working together they had to negotiate challenges, such as our home-made drone “assault course” and learn coding and Computational Thinking (CT) skills.

It is with many thanks that we have received fundraising support from the Pub Charities who have kindly supported WHS to purchase a whole class set of Tello drones. “This invaluable support means that we can develop the course and use the drone for exciting NCEA projects. Pairs of students will have hands-on access to a drone to develop 21st Century skills, such as coding in Python and developing A.I. (Artificial Intelligence). My hope is that more students will take advantage of these Digital Technologies opportunities; and that in turn this will help boost the number of students studying STEM (Science Technology Engineering Maths) pathways and boost our local economy.