As I wonder around school at break, lunch or between lessons I have always felt like the poor relation. Whilst I look at the faces that greet me I can quickly pick out the media kids, drama kings and queens, sporty guys and academics. However, until recently I have not been able to see those ICT buffs, the ones who love using computers to do great things on rather than just simply play games. Not that games are bad, but we should be designing and creating them not simply consuming what is already churned out.

For years this feeling of inadequacy, coupled with qualifications that I deem far too easy, has made me feel a little down. But now there is some excitement in the air, some buzz around the computer labs. Whilst other subject areas have hijacked the communication side of our subject and are using the latest web 2.0 tools and rich media technologies, they may well not be able to comprehend the changes that are happening to the ICT curriculum, or should I say Computing. As I do not understand all the different tenses in French or how different substances are combined to create others in Science, I would not expect them to understand how to set up a network, program a computer or combine multimedia applications with web content to create more than a pretty product but one that has deep functioning and performs effective tasks whilst still having a bit of lippy on.

Yes, I am talking about the introduction of the Computing curriculum from 2014. For all his flaws, and as teachers we know a lot about them, Mr. Gove may just have got this right. That is not to say that I do not have any concerns about the curriculum. In fact I can see five large ones…

1. Cost – it costs a lot to develop a curriculum, not only in money but in time. Extra software and hardware is needed but we also need more training to make sure we can teach it effectively and stay one step ahead of the students.
2. Ability – computer science is hard, it is as simple as that. It requires logical thought, understanding abstract concepts and scanning long sections of code to find the dreaded syntax error. At GCSE and A-level it is considered to be for stronger students, therefore how can we engage all abilities?
3. What about older students? – students from Year 8 onwards will not have had much discrete computer science education. Do we introduce it now and give them the opportunities to move into computing knowing they may get lower grades or do we shield them from it and limit job opportunities?
4. What about the things we taught before? – ICT (or rather Technology Enhanced Learning as it will now be called) is to be taught cross-curricular. Whilst I have seen a lot of excellent work done in other subjects, they are more focused on content rather than how it is communicated. In ICT we delve deeper into the technologies and think about how what we create impacts on other people. Who will pick all this up? Do other curriculum areas have the time to do this?
5. The curriculum is vague – yes we want the opportunity to shape our own future but the Computing curriculum being vague is an understatement. Will this lead to different schools teaching to different levels and thus some students not being as privileged as others? Some teachers also have more business ICT or multimedia backgrounds and may not be as comfortable with computing, if these make up most of a department what does this mean for students?

We could sit and dwell on these points but that is not progress, that is just resisting change. The fact we are preparing students for jobs that do not exist means we need to enable the change and it seems that Computing is one way forward. If statistics are to be believed, the number of computing based jobs will triple in the next five to eight years so it is down to us to enthuse students and build up their knowledge of Computing. It is a great opportunity to move Computing forward to not only be what to click but to understand the processes that are happening in that magical little box. I am personally very excited that my students will no longer pass courses by simply knowing where to click (ok it is more than that but not as deep as I would like). Now I can tell them how that WYSIWIG editor works, what we need to do to make a computer game, what is actually inside that machine in front of them and what each component does. I can make them understand that when they send an email it does not magically jump from one computer to another, how computers are linked together and what to do if their machine stops working. These are things we touch on at Key Stage 3 but seem to be ignored in coursework based qualifications by Key Stage 4. These points aside, the thing I am most looking forward to is when I walk those corridors and will be able to say ‘hi’ to computing students, to see them grow and maybe even coming to talk to me about the latest project they have undertaken. That excites me more than anything, and who knows, it might even be me who teaches and inspires the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.