ICT Curriculum

Wow, there are big changes afoot for the ICT Curriculum. Michael Gove has announced that the programmes of study for ICT will be scrapped. Schools will be able to devise their own curriculum for the subject.



The plan is that, "Britain should revive the legacy of the mathematician and wartime codebreaker Alan Turing by creating a generation of young people able to work at the forefront of technological change. Imagine the dramatic change which could be possible in just a few years, once we remove the roadblock of the existing ICT curriculum."


The national curriculum for ICT has been out-of-date almost from the moment it was written. The very nature of technology and communication means that things are constantly changing and evolving. Yet the government has never even looked remotely like it intended to evolve the ICT curriculum. So schools have already started to devise their own programmes of study and ICT progressions.


Matt Lovegrove
Simon Haughton
Chris Leach
Claire Lotriet
Ian Addison
I'm sure there are many others too.


These are all brilliant, but they have one thing in common - they have all been planned by outstanding teachers who have a passion for and a real understanding of the technology. What will happen in schools where a teacher with these skills isn't employed. A digital-gap could form where pupils have vastly differing abilities.


This opportunity is the private market's dream as many skills will need to use commercial schemes to support them.


I intend to be brave and have a go at developing a new ICT curriculum in school. I'm bound to use ideas (all credited, of course!) from the many schemes listed above. I want to try to develop a progression that children and teachers in our school will love.


Here's a very interesting blog post on the change.