Children will learn to write computer programs from the age of seven in the first step of a revolution in the way that schools teach technology.
Learning to code will be taught in primary school alongside science and history to equip young people to understand and navigate the digital world.
Experts from technology and gaming companies who have been asked by the Government to draw up a plan for computer science teaching say that the key is to begin coding at a young age.
Their plan, to be submitted this month, will form the basis of a national curriculum for computer science from September 2014. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, is scrapping the current information and communication technology (ICT) programmes, declaring them boring and out of date.
Children will learn what an algorithm is, write simple programs and learn computational thinking by 7 and should be able to design and build a mobile phone app by 11. Those who go on to GCSE level should be able to write a program sophisticated enough to solve a Su Doku puzzle. A-level students would be expected to write elementary program languages.
The plan is likely to be welcomed by Mr Gove, who asked software industry leaders to act as advisers to the Department for Education in developing the new curriculum. He has specified that teachers training to become primary ICT specialists must be able to code in two programming languages and explain concepts such as selection, repetition, variables and relational operators.
The level of demand may alarm teachers, particularly in schools where subject specialists are rare and class teachers cover most or all subjects.
The authors of the plan say that recruiting and training teachers to instruct children in coding, abstraction, decomposition and other computational thinking is its biggest challenge and may take 15 years to complete. In many schools the subject focuses largely on developing skills to use software packages such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel and too often neglects instruction in coding. The industry’s proposed curriculum, on which it is conducting a rapid online consultation, was developed by experts from companies such as Google, Microsoft, IBM, Facebook and BT via the BCS Academy of Computing.

It's not about the knowledge, but the understanding - see JVs post.

I've never gone and used the stuff I learnt about in RE, but I have an understanding and an appreciation for other people's cultures and beliefs.

The last time I used a simultaneous equation was GCSE maths, but doing it gave me a better grasp of algebra which helped greatly with programming.

Learning to code will be taught in primary school alongside science and history to equip young people to understand and navigate the digital world.
Experts from technology and gaming companies who have been asked by the Government to draw up a plan for computer science teaching say that the key is to begin coding at a young age.

We need to teach kids how to invent and discover new things, however we do that. Because the only way to guarantee them a job is for them to do things that can't be/haven't already been outsourced.

Jon

In my opinion it's not just about teaching kids to code. Some of them will never use the coding skills but teaching them to think in a logical manner has got to be a good thing, hasn't it?

I'm thinking problem solving which will indirectly help them with maths and science.

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