Admirals Junior School, Thetford, Norfolk

Admirals' Junior School is a Primary school for boys and girls. The age range of the pupils is 7-11. It has 305 pupils organised in 11 classes.

The school is situated on the edge of the small market town of Thetford and it is involved in a number of local and national initiatives. It is part of the Thetford Excellence Cluster so the school benefits from a number of programmes aimed at raising standards.

John Bell is head of Literacy and Gifted and Talented at Admirals' Junior School and was given the opportunity to 'try out' Keyboard Crazy in the classroom.

At the time of writing this report, the school was under special measures as a result of an inspection from Her Majesty's inspectors. It was with this in mind that John wanted to make absolutely certain that he had everything possible to ensure that achievement and learning could take place in his classroom.

How did you hear about Keyboard Crazy?

It was through one of the directors of Keyboard Crazy that the school heard about it. As a result, the company were kind enough to loan the school the resource to use on a trial basis.

Pupil Progress

From all early indications the results are quite outstanding. Not only was John forever receiving comments such as, "Sir, I typed that in without looking!" but this game has also really honed behaviour in the class.

Purposeful and enjoyable tasks

As any teacher will tell you, it is possible to shout, to threaten sanctions and to show exasperation without any effect on disruptive behaviour, but Keyboard Crazy works in this area and John wanted to share with you why. A child that is engaged in purposeful and enjoyable tasks is not a disruptive child and that is the true value of the game. The children will often say, "If we are really good can we play Keyboard Crazy?"

Word recognition and keyboard skills

John feels it has helped the less able pupils in terms of word recognition and the more able to hone keyboard skills. Indeed, in one class one third of the pupils boast that they now know where every key on the keyboard is without looking. This underlines the benefit of using this game, as real achievement is not based upon what you think the child actually knows, but what they know themselves.

Reflections - What next?

One game for a class is not enough! In an ideal world, John would like more games as this would enable whole class activities to take place around the game.

His whole educational philosophy is based upon the need for achievement, and whilst he would not go as far as to say the game is solely responsible for what is achieved so far, he does feel it has made a significant contribution.

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