St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Brewood

Margaret Parry

We, as a staff had been looking for a simple and effective way to teach children keyboard skills for a long time to make computer work more effective. The Headteacher was told on a course that Keyboard Crazy might be what we were looking for. Initial enquiries led to the offer of a free demonstration in school to all year groups. Needless to say we said yes! This visit had an immediate impact on the children and staff, so much that it became a “must have”. Fortunately it was possible, because of the computer based element, to purchase the games with e-learning credit.

In the reception class Keyboard Crazy has been used to refine hand-eye co-ordination and fine motor skills.  PSE development is supported by taking turns in groups and working with partners.  Skills are built on as pupils gain visual recognition of letters and match pictures to letters by sound.  Children with speech and hearing difficulties have responded well to close tuition with a broad improvement in their phonic awareness.  In KS1 the game has been used as part of a behaviour and learning programme for one child in particular.  Time with the game is used as a reward, which at the same time, reinforces matching of upper and lower case letters.

KS2 teachers have found the game promotes;

• Learning the alphabet
• Learning the position of letters, etc on a keyboard
• Improvement in fine motor skills
• Improvement in team work and co-operation
• Improvement in hand-eye co-ordination
• Improvement memory skills.
• Kinaesthetic learning
• A time element can be introduced which the children enjoy

Keyboard Crazy has proved useful to SEN children in the school but it has also improved the skills of all children of varying abilities. The children are keen to use the games and they have commented that, for example, they have used the times tables games and learned tables with no apparent effort.

The whole school has enjoyed using both the keyboard games and the computer element of the programme; the children were also pleased to demonstrate their skills to members of staff from other schools who visited us on our second training session. 

If anyone would like more information about the way we use this resource please contact the school. (01902 850261)