To mark the launch of EU Code Week 2014 – a European Commission initiative designed to promote coding and digital literacy among young people – Dr John Woollard from the University of Southampton shares his thoughts on how computer science teaching in England has been completely redesigned.
Changing the curriculum for an important subject like computing is not easy. Changing the subject for a whole country is quite a challenge. But this was what lay ahead for myself and other members of the Computing at School (CAS) working group in 2008, when we came together to discuss how to radically reshape the way computing and computer science was taught in England’s schools.
At first, the challenge seemed daunting, near impossible. Everyone around the table could reel off problems with the current state of computer science teaching. Businesses, industry, the public sector and the security services all needed more employees with a high level of digital skills, but the interest in university-level computer science studies was falling.
Computer science courses designed for over-16 year olds were unpopular; ICT lessons in schools were considered boring and uninspiring; many teachers didn’t know how to teach computer science; and the examination of computer science courses left much to be desired in the way of substantial computing content.
Simon Peyton-Jones, chair of the Computing at School (CAS) group and the driving force behind our campaign, described the challenge ahead as like “being at the bottom of a deep well, looking upward and shouting ‘computer science is important!’”
Debating the need to reform how computer science was taught in schools, I thought back to my first experiences in the 1970s teaching a group of 11-14 years old students around one school computer – a Commodore Business personal electronic transactor (PET) I taught BASIC programming and a machine code language called CESIL, and the students learnt to programme by hand-punching cards. This involved bi-weekly trips to a local centre where the cards could be RUN, just so I could bring the results back into school on a computer printout!
But despite the practical hindrances, the students I taught were programming – they were learning algorithmic and computational thinking, they were learning decomposition, they were learning abstraction. These are the same skills we talk about students needing to learn today.
Despite all the advances of the following decades, despite a computer in every classroom, the development of integrated software suites or even the emergence of the World Wide Web, somehow computer science in schools had drifted away from its origins.
Instead of learning how underlying hardware worked, as I had once done, 21st century schoolchildren were stuck learning simply how to use computers for specific purposes, without ever knowing about their inner workings. Given all the modern resources at their disposal, it seemed a crying shame.
That’s how we all found ourselves around the same table six years ago – representatives from education, industry and the non-profit sector, all calling for change. And we managed it.
This September, schoolchildren across England returned to their classrooms after the summer holidays to find a new subject on their timetables – the National Curriculum Programme of Study for Computing.
From understanding what algorithms are and how they are implemented as programmes on the devices we take for granted, to creating and debugging simple programmes, the new computing curriculum aims to enable schoolchildren to make, do and share highly interesting things with the whole world.
The journey to get to this point was far from easy. But it was made possible through the hard work of some highly-motivated and persistent individuals, sustained engagement from the tech industry itself and cooperation with government departments.
Our campaign also focused on enabling people to grasp the potential of technology themselves through local initiatives and on celebrating the achievements of computer science teachers, by providing them with opportunities for resource sharing and ongoing training. This included gaining the support of universities that could provide expertise to local schools.
To bring all of these varied elements together and ensure that as many people could contribute to our curriculum reform efforts as possible, we made it all free: free conferences, free meetings of teachers, free membership of hubs, and free national membership to Computing at School. It’s still possible for those interested in developing or teaching the computer science curriculum to join for free.
Above all, getting students, teachers and communities passionate about computing and giving them a voice in the debate was a major milestone in bringing what started out as a seemingly-hopeless scenario to a successful conclusion.
The over-arching goal of this reform was to provide schoolchildren across England with high-quality computing education which could equip them “to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world.” Changing the curriculum was ambitious; changing the world even more so. But when that world is increasingly digital, it’s a worthy goal.