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Students flock to summer school in Coquitlam district

Gone are the days when kids just went to school for 10 months of the year
Summer school
Summer school is increasingly popular, with many younger students taking courses in coding and computational thinking.

Close to 20% of School District 43 students spent at least part of their summer in school, according to figures released at a board meeting Tuesday.

A record number of enrolees — 6,373 students in all — filed through the doors at several schools in the district, including Kilmer elementary in Port Coquitlam, which added summer school this year.

Among the more popular courses was an introduction to coding and computational thinking, where students got up to 40 hours of learning about how to get computers to do tasks using programmable computers such as Spheros and Micro:bits.

The younger children also used traditional toys, such as playing cards, to learn computational thinking so they didn’t spend all their time in front of screens, Murray Peters, principal of SD43 summer learning told trustees.

The coding courses are so popular, Murray said, the plan is to increase the number of offerings next year.