Each month, Digital Schoolhouse welcomes you to The Playful Classroom,
where we'll explore the challenges and opportunities shaping computing education today.
Shahneila Saeed is Head of Education at Ukie and the Director of Digital Schoolhouse. She served as Head of Computing at an Inner London school for over 15 years before joining Ukie, where she spearheaded the creation of the Digital Schoolhouse Programme.
She is a prolific author, having penned books like "Hacking the Curriculum: Creative Computing & the Power of Play", "How to Raise a Tech Genius" and the forthcoming “Max Computing” series. She actively contributes to the field as a board member, trustee, and advisor for organisations including NCCE, Digit<all>, and Into Games.
5 years of the Festival of Play
From the very start of Digital Schoolhouse, Shahneila had the idea of taking the ethos behind Digital Schoolhouse’s workshops and amplifying it on a larger scale – teaching children Computing in crazy ways, and giving their teachers professional development at the same time. She was also aware that there were very few Computing school trips, so had the idea of making a tech conference for kids that could be done as a school trip. The idea was to capture the excitement of computing and show children that they could have careers in this space.
More than just a school trip
The concept was simple – to take the Computer Science that pupils were learning in schools and show how it is applied in video games.
It was a tech conference for 9-14-year-olds: less coffee, more ice cream.
Since then, the festival has grown significantly, expanding its reach and impact nationwide.
The first year of the Festival of Play, 2022, saw Digital Schoolhouse and Electronic Arts launching the event at Media City in Salford. In 2023, we expanded to include Birmingham’s spectacular new library. In 2024, we went to Coventry, London at the University of Westminster, and Belfast for the first time, thanks to Northern Ireland Screen seeing the impact it had in Manchester and helping us take it across the water. Last year, we went to Scotland too, partnering up with Abertay University to bring creative learning to even more children.
And that brings us to 2026, where, to mark a remarkable five years of working with Electronic Arts, we are putting on 5 Festivals, giving Liverpool and Wales their Festival of Play debuts.
But why do we do it?
To solve this, we moved the goalposts. We recognised that "opt-in" models like clubs, after-school programs, and optional trips, frequently fail the very students they are meant to help. Those with the least confidence or the most barriers to entry simply do not "opt-in."
Digital Schoolhouse was founded on the principle of universal access. By delivering our workshops during the school day, for the entire class, we remove the burden of self-selection.
Thank you
The five-year anniversary of the event is the perfect time to reflect on the impact we've had and thank our partner, Electronic Arts, for joining us on this journey.
We set out together to make a tech conference that was less coffee, more ice cream. After 5 years, over 1,500 pupils have been reached across the United Kingdom, and with hundreds more coming this year, we can safely say we have more than achieved that.
Here’s to five more years!
