Logo
Logo is a simple text-based programming language which has long been used in schools to develop early programming and control skills. Some children will arrive in secondary school with some experience of this. Some will have even had experience of using Logo programming to control the movement of small robots. However, Logo still provides a great starting point and will be new to the majority of most classes.
The website 
Turtle Academy is a great option for introducing Logo, as it is 100% web-app (no software to download) and comes with lots of lessons that build skills progressively. This makes it a great tool for differentiation – the most able will quickly work through the lessons and get on to their own creations.
Preparation for delivery
As with anything you would teach to a class, it is essential that you have a strong understanding to enable you to resolve any difficulties students may face and to have ideas for extension tasks for more able students. This will require you to complete the tasks in Turtle Academy yourself prior to the lessons.
Suggested delivery
Length of unit: 3 lessons:
- Lesson 1: Basic text-based programming using Logo
- Lesson 2: The benefit of using loops in programming.
- Lesson 3: Use of FOR to limit the number of repetitions in a loop.
This can easily be extended by a few lessons to give students the opportunity to develop their skills through a range of tasks, for example creating the code for a simple logo design.
Students can work independently through the lessons built into the Turtle Academy website. However, if your classes would struggle with the literacy requirements of this style of learning and would benefit from greater levels of instruction and teacher input, the following pages contain resources which can be used with whole classes.