The laptops, which were donated by teachers who had no more use for them, were first given to the school before the suggestion was made to give them to Yass IT. 

According to James Halley, a former Yass High student who now works in IT at the school, the laptops allowed the students to both complete part of their assessment while doing a good deed for children in the community.

“One of the Year 11 IT competencies is to install and optimise an operating system,” Mr Halley said. 

“So then we contacted Yass IT because they have their [Coderdojo] initiative, and we asked what they wanted to be done to the laptops that were going to be donated … and one of those things was install an operating system, so we got the kids to do it.” 

David Osborne, who works at Yass IT and helps to run the Coderdojo program in Yass, said the students in the program were “really happy about it”.

“They seem to really get into it,” Mr Osborne said.

“The kids that we’ve donated the laptops to seem to be doing the best out of all of them.”

Coderdojo is an initiative that began in Ireland to teach children how to code computers.

Mr Halley explained that part of his enthusiasm for the donation was also due to his own experiences as a child interested in technology.

“It would’ve meant the world [to me] to be able to ... learn all this stuff about coding and electronics,” he said.