The Junior Summer School is a two-week introduction to computing for pupils aged 15 to 18, held each July on the chen.ist campus in Craiova. It is intended as a serious but friendly first taste of the disciplines covered in the senior programme, with an emphasis on building digital confidence and good habits early.
What pupils work on
- Digital literacy — how the internet, the web and modern operating systems actually work, and how to read what they show you with a critical eye.
- Cyber safety — passwords, devices, online identity, the basics of personal threat-modelling.
- Creative technology — designing and building a small digital project of the pupil’s own, presented at the end of the programme.
A typical day
Mornings combine short lectures with structured exercises; afternoons are given over to project work in small teams; evenings are unstructured, with games, films and supervised social time on campus.
Pastoral care and supervision
The Junior Summer School is supervised throughout by chen.ist staff and a team of tutors drawn from the senior programme. Pupils stay together on the campus and parents receive a daily summary by email.
After the school
Pupils who complete the programme receive a certificate and an invitation to the chen.ist Computer Club, which runs through the academic year and keeps in touch with alumni until they are old enough to apply to the senior programme.