PUPILS at Borders College are surging ahead on the Schools Academy Computer Science course.

The S5/6 group meet two half days per week at the Scottish Borders Campus in Galashiels where they work on complex software development. This helps them work towards a valuable SQA National qualification in Computer Science.

The Borders College Schools Academy allows pupils from a range of secondary schools to study subjects that are not available within their school curriculum.

Stuart Munro and fellow 6th year pupil William Lawrie have been designing a football game, based on an old 70’s table tennis game.

Stuart said: “It’s great you can experiment with different artwork, techniques and music to compliment the games and get experience working with different computer language applications. I created my football game using Javascript, but we also used visual basic to make a calculator and php to look at manipulating databases and to create apps as well. It is the best thing on my timetable.”

By the end of the course pupils will have developed their knowledge and understanding of the key concepts and processes in computer science; they also have the opportunity to extend their knowledge with possible progression on to College courses.

Dr John Paul Hood, Course Lecturer said: “Computer science is integrated into everything in life, these students are showing great potential – the fact that they have gone from not knowing anything about computer science to making their own games in a period of eight weeks is testament to the course.”

For more information on Schools Academies visit http://www.borderscollege.ac.uk/future-students/schools-academy/.