Vandyke welcomes computing equipment donation from Rotary Club

The Rotary Club of Leighton-Linslade has donated Physical Computing equipment including Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller boards to the town’s two upper schools. The Pico boards, complete with storage cases and a wide range of components and accessories, will be used by students for curriculum learning and extracurricular activities.

The Heads of Computing at Vandyke and Cedars, Toby Heley and Stephen Birtles, worked together with Gary Gleeson of the Rotary Club to identify and choose this much needed equipment, which represents a donation of around £500 per school.

Steve Bigrave, current President of the Leighton–Linslade Rotary Club, was delighted to visit Vandyke on Tuesday morning to present the new equipment to staff and students from both Vandyke and Cedars, and to see the students test out the kits for the first time.

Leah Ferguson-Moore, headteacher at Vandyke Upper School, said: “We are immensely grateful for The Rotary Club’s generosity and commitment to our students’ learning; the IT equipment that has been provided will be an excellent addition to the computing department’s teaching and learning resources.”

The National Curriculum requires students studying in Key Stage 3 to understand how hardware components can work together as part of real-world computer systems. Thanks to the generosity of the Rotary Club, this equipment will ensure this objective can be achieved in both schools.