Beginners Please! is a set of programming exercises, in COMAL, for complete beginners to programming. It is intended for school pupils at age 11 or 12, but could be used with any group of starters. Schools with UniCOMAL V3.11 can use the pack so long as they have VGA graphics available.
The exercises use sets of pre-written graphics procedures to help pupils build up pictures on the computer screen. There are three different procedure sets of increasing complexity, called "Fishy", "Gunner" and "Landscape". Pupils are progressively introduced to direct command mode, program mode, fixed loops and user procedures. During the exercises they will have to manage loading, saving, listing, running and printing of their programs. There is a task grid containing 21 task boxes to help in monitoring pupil progress.
The course is pupil-centred, mainly hands-on, and pupils are expected to proceed at their own pace with frequent support from the teacher. A full set of photocopiable pupil's notes is provided along with the software and the teacher's notes.
The price includes a full site licence covering all computers in the school, with a teacher's extension for home use for lesson preparation etc. Full source code and documentation are included.