UK to trial software coding lessons

Most children these days are quite competent with a PC my own 9 year old daughter already has quite a good foundation on how to use office software and the Internet which she has gained through watching her old man and IT lessons at junior school so a change to the curriculum is very much welcomed as the lessons currently being taught at a secondary school level may well be teaching our children skills that they already have.

The government is running a trial of software coding lessons which if successful may lead to GCSE and A-levels in the subject, with the current lack of professionals in the industry coming through it has to be a very smart move for the UK job market.

The industry funded scheme will be launched at 20 schools in England and will run from November until the end of the school year but is only being run as an extra-curricular activity on a voluntary basis and hopes to involve around 100 pupils at a GCSE level.

There’s going to be a live pilot over two terms in schools of a programme that will transform the IT curriculum away from computer literacy, which we believe many young people can do earlier, towards instead how they develop software and computational principles; how they can create their own programmes.”I want to see the ability to create software, to write programmes, that is one of the key functional skills for the 21st century, and young people going through school, college and university should have the opportunity to generate those skills.

Some of the schools that have been named as getting involved are Manchester Grammar, Bradfield College, Reading, Park House School, Newbury, and Townley Grammar in Bexleyheath, Kent.