Ada Lovelace primary resource

This primary resource provides an opportunity to begin discussion about mathematician Ada Lovelace, and how her work writing algorithms has influenced computer programming today.

Pupils will discover interesting facts about Ada Lovelace and how her work has encouraged girls and women to get involved in Maths, Science, Computing and Engineering in our National Geographic Kids’ Technology primary resource.

The teaching resource can be used in study group tasks, as a printed hand out for each pupil to review and annotate, or for display on the interactive whiteboard for class discussion.

Activity: Ask children to research Ada Lovelace’s work on the algorithm for Charles Babbage’s ‘Analytical Engine’. What is an algorithm? They could use their research to make a short leaflet or report that looks at Ada Lovelace’s influence on coding and computing advancements during and after her lifetime. Pupils could make a poster encouraging girls to consider a career in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths, thinking about Ada Lovelace as a role model.

N.B. The following information for mapping the resource documents to the school curriculum is specifically tailored to the English National Curriculum and Scottish Curriculum for Excellence. We are currently working to bring specifically tailored curriculum resource links for our other territories; including South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. If you have any queries about our upcoming curriculum resource links, please email: schools@ngkids.co.uk

This Technology primary resource assists with teaching the following Computing aims from the National Curriculum:

The national curriculum for computing aims to ensure that all pupils:  

• can understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation.

National Curriculum Key Stage 1 Computing objectives:

Pupils should be taught to:

• Understand what algorithms are; how they are implemented as programs on digital devices; and that programs execute by following precise and unambiguous instructions.

National Curriculum Key Stage 2 Computing objectives:

Pupils should be taught to:

• Use logical reasoning to explain how some simple algorithms work and to detect and correct errors in algorithms and programs.

As a History primary resource, this resource assists with teaching the Key Stage 1 History objective from the National Curriculum: 

• Pupils should be taught: the lives of significant individuals in the past who have contributed to national and international achievements. Some should be used to compare aspects of life in different periods.

As a Technology primary resource, this resource assists with teaching the following Technologies Early level objectives from the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence:

• I understand that sequences of instructions are used to control computing technology.

Scottish Curriculum for Excellence Sciences First level objectives:

• I understand the instructions of a visual programming language and can predict the outcome of a program written using the language.

• I understand how computers process information.

 Scottish Curriculum for Excellence Sciences Second level objectives:

• I can explain core programming language concepts in appropriate technical language.

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