It’s a big ask.




http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/education/3 ... mme-failed

And:




http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/education/3 ... -the-cheap

I know some here think that teachers should just be able to teach this by nature of being teachers, but you can’t teach any subject effectively without knowing something about the subject.

The timetable may be overambitious, and the funding undercooked.
But if our nation's ICT teachers are in principle unable to learn basic coding skills, doesn't that tell us that the old way has definitely got to go?

When we did computer studies at school, the teacher told us he would be taking the exam with us! There were two of us in the class that could program and we essentially led the programming part of the lessons, he did the history of computing stuff...

By "I principle unable to learn basic coding skills" (ignoring the obvious pun - well done though) you mean "teachers who are capable can't because their time demands are too great" - then, yes, I'd agree with you. Of you mean "they are unwilling to learn or incapable of doing so" then they are in the wrong subject area.

However, ICT, as you may know, is not programming. It's how to do things in Word, or Excel or PowerPoint. It's about using software to achieve things. All well and good, but those teaching that kind of computer work may not be the person to teach coding. From what I have seen (and I know my exposure is limited to primary schools), it's not big on writing software. I don't think secondary schools are any better, TBH.

I would expect the secondary school sector to be able to adjust better than primary schools as I would expect an ICT teacher to be able to adapt, just as I would expect a maths teacher to teach new aspects of that subject.

Primary is, as you know, a different kettle of fish. The are few specialist teachers who deal in one subject - a primary teacher has to be able to teach everything, and a lot of those subjects are within that person's experience. So even if the curriculum changes, what is taught is generally within those boundaries.

Programming is not something normal people do on a day to day basis; it's not a normal activity, and so to the majority of primary teachers, it will be a completely new subject - one which will need to be learned from scratch (I can do it too - ho! ho!).

So - there are options.
1 - teach the teachers. Not a day of Python, but throw them at Scratch and then LiveCode. The former introduces concepts in easy to follow bits, the latter can build on that to allow the development of real "works on your PC" software. Actually, the CodeClub materials will do just the job here in starting people off.

2 - have peripatetic teachers who can travel from school to school, taking lessons AND supporting existing staff and training them. This is the option I'd go for, simply because it could work in the timeframe allotted.

As an aside - I'm helping with CodeClub at my wife's school. It appears to be the only CodeClub school in the area, and so I'd say that they are ahead of this anyway. Kids learn this stuff really well, as you'd expect - but you need someone with experience and knowledge to push them, and help them if they get stuck.

I'm guessing this is to be phased in to some extent. i.e. kids who have been learning how to change fonts in Word or whatever crap the old ICT lessons taught, will continue learning the same stuff under the old curriculum until they graduate to a big boy school. And that the all new programmy ICT goes live with its first year of first year intake this Sept?

That would imply to me that the role out this year is rather limited both in number of teachers who need to be up to speed, and the level they must attain in order to teach the classes they need to in the next academic year.

It is perhaps a hot bath into which our academic institutions must be eased, rather than plunged.

As a rule, I am wary of top down re-organization. I would expect success if: The people who set the requirements (kids need to know P by age Q) leave it more or less at that; then the people who provide curriculum support (P can best be taught with resources X, Y or Z) present tools; and then the schools themselves decide on implementation strategies according to the willingness of their teacher base to pick up tools X,Y or Z. Lubricate that lot with a little funding for some basic training, and to buy in curriculum packs at the school's own discretion, and things should work out OK. This is my algorithm for change without [LIFTED] stuff up - I offer it as an open source project, no attribution required.

I am working of course on an assumption that the teachers are, by and large, smarter than the kids - a few genius children are counted as statistical outliers in my imagination - and thus each school should contain some teachers capable of attaining P in advance of the majority of their charges.

What worries me more is whether P is actually known yet (the history of such projects is ambivalent in this matter, as any doctors we have lying around will doubt attest); and if it is known, was that established in time for anyone to work out values for X, Y and Z (history tells us that nobody is usually in charge of locating these things). Abd finally, if those other things are in hand, has some bozo control freak seized all the cash in order to waste it on micromanagement.

Yep.
Coding is much more important that the crappy lessons we used to have. Learning how to change font size in word etc isn't a real lesson.
I look forward to the day when my sons can put me to shame with stuff like that.

Interestingly, my wife has a guide from the Times Educational Supplement that she had downloaded this week that said (pretty much as far as Primary education is concerned) “as you were”.

They are suggesting Scratch, logo type robots and a few other things - she says that they do pretty much all of that already. However, as far as schools in the area are, that one is miles ahead of others as far as teaching this kind of thing anyway. When she went to a meeting of the other IT coordinators, it seems that what they are doing with Scratch in Year 3 is what others are doing in Year 6. None are doing anything like Code Club. I’m expecting that they’ll come traipsing round to see what we’re up to at some point. My wife is also keen on doing Code Club like lessons for parents so that they know what their kids are up to and can help them at home.

For some schools, it may be that these changes are more seismic than for others.

The new curriculum is still in its draft phase, so it’s subject to change, but I have a feeling that the bigger changes will be in the secondary sector where proper programming languages will have to be introduced.