4th February 2015 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The government has announced plans to step up the teaching of computing skills in primary schools. The scheme, which will cost £3.6m is supported by technology companies including Google and O2, who have pledged to help develop digital skills in the classroom. Experts from participating companies will help with teacher training and provide resources. The government has said that a significant number of jobs in the future will be with technology companies, or at least require developed computer skills. The scheme is part of a number of projects involving schools and universities which are designed to develop the computing curriculum.
The Department for Education has offered to match the 3.6m in funding offered by businesses involved in the scheme, and intends to run programs in schools such as writing computer code. In order to develop the new curriculum, the government and businesses are working with a university consortium including Queen Mary London and Oxford University to produce training materials. These materials are designed to ensure that teachers are prepared to plan, teach and assess the computing curriculum. Education secretary Nicky Morgan said that teachers needed to develop “computing-related thinking skills”.
In addition to working with schools and universities to develop the new computing curriculum, the government has developed a number of schemes to support schools and teachers with bringing themselves up to date with the development of computing technology. The schemes developed include online training courses and peer-to-peer training, in addition to a programme run by the British Computer Society which is building a 400-strong network of expert computing teachers to help train other teachers. Labour have said that the plans for developing computing in schools are too little too late, accusing the government of snobbery towards computing qualifications and failing to adapt to the changing market in a timely way.