BUDDING computer software engineers are being put through their paces at a Port Glasgow primary school.

A dozen P5 youngsters at Newark Primary are immersed in after-school computer programme training run by one of the teachers.

Katie D’Souza had a background in engineering before becoming a teacher and used her skills to supplement the curriculum.

She ran young engineers clubs elsewhere before setting up a ‘Raspberry Pi’ programming club at Newark.

Raspberry Pi is a credit-card sized computer that plugs into a keyboard and can be used to teach programming skills.

It can be utilised in electronics projects and for many of the things that a desktop PC does, such as spreadsheets, word-processing and games. The children started off with programming a computer to draw a square and have now progressed to designing games, including one involving a lion chasing a monkey.

Katie said: “I bought a set of equipment with the encouragement and guidance of my father, Robin D’Souza, who has a wealth of experience in this area.

“Staff from IBM were also very helpful in providing advice and resources. I started off with one Raspberry Pi at King’s Oak Primary and a pilot group of five P5 children. “They astounded me with the complexity of programming they were able to achieve in just one term.

“I moved to Newark Primary this year and was keen to increase the number of children that I can reach, so I contacted the Young Engineering Clubs Scotland to see if they could help. They were incredibly helpful, giving their time, resource and expertise to help me set-up a further four stations within my classroom. With five fully operational stations and the help of our newly qualified teacher, Ian Armour, I have increased the club numbers to 12 P5 children. Interest is very high and the children have shown a real interest in learning programming. Having started literally from scratch, they are now programming and de-bugging in co-operative groups with very little input from myself or Ian. They are really inspirational, and I have great hopes that we might have one or two future games tycoons in our midst!” Nine-year-old Sofie McAllister described the programming as ‘really cool’. She said: “I’m really interested in the technology and I’d love to work with computers.” Craig Nairn, also nine, said he had always been interested in computers.

He added: “The classes have helped me understand computers better.” Nine-year-old Abbie Donaldson said the classes were great fun.

She said: “I’d recommend it to anyone my age.” And Emma Henderson, nine, is the class ‘de-bugging’ specialist.

She said: “You can make games with the programme. I really enjoy it.”