Guest post: Nicky Morgan - 'why we're teaching coding in primary schools'

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

This term, as your child settles back into lessons, or perhaps even starts school for the first time, they will be taught a new, forward-thinking national curriculum. As well as a strong emphasis on getting the basics right in English, maths and science, they will also be taught new skills such as coding.

The new curriculum has been designed to ensure children leave school with the knowledge and skills they need to survive and thrive in the modern world, so technology seemed an obvious place to start.

We use technology for everything now – to work, to socialise, to make a noise about the issues we care about – and our children are growing up to rely on computers and tablets more than ever.

That's why for me the introduction of computing to the national curriculum is one of the most important and exciting changes of all.

In designing the new content we looked to countries like Estonia, where they have already introduced computing from the start of school. We also heard from digital innovators like Microsoft, Google and even leading figures in the gaming industry.

The result is an innovative curriculum that will get children excited about the subject and teach them the skills they need to compete not just in modern Britain, but in a modern and increasingly digital world.

ICT lessons used to focus too much on how to use a computer – but just learning how to word process or use a spreadsheet is at odds with how we use technology today.

Now, from the age of five, children will learn coding and how computers actually work. They will learn how to create computer games, rather than just playing them and they’ll understand how the gadgets that fill our homes are made.

For a generation of parents who, like me, probably didn't even have computers in their school, the changes can seem daunting. A new computing curriculum brings with it a whole new language – of algorithms, outputs and programming – which might seem totally alien to a primary school classroom.

But in the schools that are already successfully teaching these new topics, teachers are coming up with creative ways to translate that ‘alien language’.

Whether it’s instructing their teacher how to make a sandwich, or directing their classmates through an obstacle course, children can learn about algorithms – precise, step-by-step instructions intended to achieve a specific goal – in a way that makes it fun and relevant to their everyday lives.

These are not niche skills. Computing reinforces important concepts like problem solving and logical reasoning, which will help your child in maths and science. These are also the skills most valued by employers and so will give children a competitive advantage in the future jobs market.

Of course, we also have a responsibility to teach children to use technology safely. We know children are accessing computers and the internet from a younger age. Schools – and parents – need to work with the technology to ensure children are safe online.

For the first time, e-safety will be taught when children start school at key stage one, helping them understand how to use technology safely and respectfully, how to keep personal information private, and where to go for help and support if they are worried about any content or contact on the internet.

When I entered the world of work, many of the digital careers available today didn't even exist. It was quite easy then to think of these skills as only relevant to a very narrow group of people. Careers in computing were male dominated and seemed to involve hours spent staring at lines of code on a screen or stuck in a computer lab.

This new curriculum is an important step in challenging those outdated stereotypes, and encouraging our children – whatever their gender – to aspire to a career in the new digital world.

Through initiatives like the Government-backed Your Life campaign we need to do more to celebrate female entrepreneurs in the world of technology so that girls, as well as boys, see how computing can open the door to careers in marketing, manufacturing and everything in between.

We may not be sure exactly what the jobs of the future will look like, but our plan for education will give children the skills, knowledge and confidence they need to succeed in them.

[HeySoulSister]

So in order to add this into the curriculum it will surely be at the expense of another lesson being condensed down or even abandoned.... Which lesson gets chopped to accommodate this?

[HeySoulSister]

Ah I see! Had visions of them cutting P.E or something for it!

[brandnewinformation]

I'd be interested to find out more about the Your Life campaign. I'm surprised that the issue of getting girls especially interested was only mentioned at this point!

[BiscuitMillionaire]

How will teachers who don't have any understanding of coding or how computers work be able to teach this?

[Ingotian]

Gender is already an issue. 16500 pupils out of a cohort of 680000 sat a GCSE in computing last year. 2500 girls. < 0.5 of 1%. What strategies are being put in place to redress this?

[smallnotfaraway]

"When I entered the world of work, many of the digital careers available today didn't even exist. It was quite easy then to think of these skills as only relevant to a very narrow group of people. Careers in computing were male dominated and seemed to involve hours spent staring at lines of code on a screen or stuck in a computer lab."

Coding STILL involves hours spent staring at lines of code on a screen - that's what actual coding involves :) Quite honestly, it takes a certain type of brain to be a successful coder - just as it takes a certain type of brain to be a successful musician. There are plenty of musicians out there who do it for fun and are good at it, but precious few are so good they can make a career out of it.

My dh is a lead (software) developer in a job requiring fairly high-level programming skills - he's been coding since age 11 or so, almost entirely self-taught, didn't go to Uni, but has a passion for coding and is constantly learning. When it comes to recruitment, he sifts through hundreds of CVs, from recent graduates to people of his own age (late 30s) and older, there are only one or two from females. He makes a point of trying to get female candidates, but the calibre still just isn't there - hopefully, things may possibly change in the future, perhaps with girls with potential being identified earlier because of earlier exposure to programming?

Saying that, my ds started learning coding in year 4 at school on Scratch - he's in year 9 now (he has a coding brain, and has taught himself CSS, HTML, Javascript, Command line, learning a bit of Java and Python at school - is better at coding than some of his teachers) he says it is clear to spot the kids who really 'get' it - there are just maybe two others in his year - all boys.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a good idea for kids to have exposure to programming, and helpful in the world of work to be able to correct your WYSIWYG templates and understand how databases work. And both Minecraft and Scratch are great in developing the kind of logical thinking and skills needed in dealing with today's software in the workplace - however, I would imagine that most of the jobs available out there will still involve USING software rather than actually compiling it.

[EmilyAlice]

Nicky, how is this different from the work that we were doing with Roamer and Logo in the National Curriculum for Key Stage 1 and 2 in the early 1990s?
Algorithms, outputs, programming; I really can't see anything new here. How will it be different this time around?

[lifeissweet]

I'm an ICT co-ordinator and have barely had to adjust my schemes of work. We have been using Scratch and beebots and roamers for years. We use Hopscotch on the iPads. None of it is actually new - and there is still plenty of old 'ICT skills in the curriculum.

E-safety has also always been taught from reception up in ICT lessons and as part of one-off initiatives such as e-safety day.

Maybe the terminology in the curriculum document has changed, but not much else.

[Trills]

Teaching coding at this stage is mostly about logic, isn't it?

If this then that, else something different.

It's useful brain training.

[MoreBeta]

This is a bonkers idea. Since when did five year old need to code!? Reading, writing and maths is what they need.

Besides, cutting code is a lowest cost activity that Indian and Chinese programmers on $50 - 100 a day will be doing in 20 years time and UK programmers will not be able to compete with that.

[ReallyTired]

I am in favour of children learning to code. It gives an appreciation of how IT systems work. Learning to develop applications helps to develop imagination. Even if a child does not work as a programmer, there are lots of other careers that require imagination and logical thinking.

Why has subjects like Art, Music and Drama been squeezed out the curriculum? A sucessful software product requires orginality and good communication skills. Writing code is the easy part. Having the idea for an application is far harder.

[ThePerUnaBomber]

The editor of TechCity News told me that good coders can earn upwards of £40k as a starting salary on the Silicon Roundabout due to the high levels of startup and crowdsourced funding available. I felt like retraining! (Civil servant of almost 20 years... Not much chance!)

[TheSporkforeatingkyriarchy]

I get the ideal behind it and many of the early non-computer based activities will be good both for coding and for logic and things like Scratch are good fun while teaching skills. Also learning how things work and skills is far better than the ICT I was taught at school on sofware that doesn't even exist now or really within a few years after I used it.

But, I don't see why it's being given such a priority and why coding is being promoted as this great equalizer of careers. There have been a lot of women in STEM conversations going around lately and the issue isn't about skills, it's partially about representation, but really it's about the atmosphere of many STEM areas towards women being, as was described by some, like a pipe of acid. Everyone telling girls and women to get into the pipe doesn't change that, if something about the world of STEM doesn't change there will still be low take up rates and high drop out rates for those that are still made to feel very unwelcome. Skills are only a tiny part of the issue and with coding many are self taught.

Personally, I think primary needs to focus more on social and emotional skills. The desire to imagine the careers of the future and beginning their focus at primary seems rather silly to me with how things are changing and regardless of careers or innovations, the basics skills and considerations needed to build up oneself and relationships with another are far too undervalued.

[DontCallMeBaby]

"Teaching coding" is such a crude message. Expose children to logic, to different forms of coding and scripting, any actual coding you teach them is going to be obsolete or as near as dammit by the time they're out at work. DO teach them office applications - teach them how useful a spreadsheet can be to do all sorts of things they were never meant to do, teach them how they can do things that knock a lot of basic coding into a cocked hat. Teach them graphic design that is aesthetically pleasing, not just technically possible, teach them that PowerPoint presentations with lime text on yellow, sound effects, and four different fonts do nothing to make people take you seriously! Teach them research skills and critical thinking, that Wikipedia is not the font of all knowledge.

It's parts of life now, not something with a special label. Fit it in with everything else, just like reading and writing. Let them embrace it all, some of them will be creating the hardware and software of the future; some will just end up writing the equivalent of this in 20 years, not making th technology, but comfortable with it, up for the challenge and the change.

[Passmethecrisps]

As a teacher of computing at secondary school (Scotland) I have mixed feelings about this.

I am not a 'natural coder'. I find some of the logical thinking and mathematical aspects challenging. However, I very much enjoy teaching coding and I can see the benefits when it works well. For me it is not about coding, it is about problem solving and logical thinking.

The vast majority of children will not need to code to any degree but well developed logical thinking and higher order thinking will be very useful whatever they do

[EBearhug]

There have been a lot of women in STEM conversations going around lately and the issue isn't about skills, it's partially about representation, but really it's about the atmosphere of many STEM areas towards women being, as was described by some, like a pipe of acid.

But if everyone is doing it from an early age, then surely some of the sexism will die out?

I work in IT and I'm a STEM ambassador, and there are times when I think if I do inspire anyone to take it up as a career, I'm not really doing them any favours. But there are some good companies out there, and also, not going into a career because there are some sexist twats working there - I'm not sure that's a good enough reason not to do it, if someone is interested in it. Obviously it's better not to have to put up with it at all, but I'm not sure any industry is free of it.

I do hope that if boys and girls are working together on it from a young age, rather than mostly just boys in lunchtime coding clubs and so on, that they'll all see it as a normal thing for everyone to do, not just boys.

[VeryLittleGravitasIndeed]

I agree with DontCallMeBaby, IT isn't a "thing" any more. Technology is a ubiquitous part of life. It should just be an intrinsic part of the classroom experience. DD (9 months) already plays with my iPhone (well, mostly she wants to eat it, but she also loves the paint program) - she won't grow up thinking of technology as an adjunct.

I think the coding aspect is important though, but mainly as logic training. Coding, with the right brain, isn't hard at all, but it is great mental gymnastics. I loved it as soon as I tried it.

What I didn't love was the lifestyle that goes with it, and the tediously awkward personalities. So now I manage the nerds instead .

STEM will become more diverse when it stops being so bloody self-conscious and deliberately "different" (and threatened by the presence of women in the enclave, in my experience). I'm not convinced teaching girls coding at school has any bearing on that.

[ReallyTired]

I used to be a software developer. I gave up my career because of the long hours expected in software development. The problem with any IT type job is that if you take a career break its next to impossible to return. IT moves so quickly.

"I work in IT and I'm a STEM ambassador, and there are times when I think if I do inspire anyone to take it up as a career, I'm not really doing them any favours. But there are some good companies out there, and also, not going into a career because there are some sexist twats working there - I'm not sure that's a good enough reason not to do it, if someone is interested in it. Obviously it's better not to have to put up with it at all, but I'm not sure any industry is free of it."

The two employers I had when I worked as a programmer were very good when it came to equal opportunities. The problem with programming jobs is that programmers often have to change job when a project comes to an end. Part time programmer jobs are virtually non existant and you are often expected to work long hours.

After my children were born I worked in network support. I encountered grosque sexism and pregnancy discrimination when I worked in IT support.

[EBearhug]

We have a couple of developers who always leave very promptly (public transport reasons more than anything else) - they are still here after many rounds of redundancy over the years, so they must be valued. There are issues with presenteeism in some departments, though - and of course, being in the office in front of a keyboard guarantees you are working effectively and as productively as possible.

I'd say network guys are more sexist than most other areas, but I suspect a lot of it is down to individual departments and the people in it, rather than the role per se.

[NataliaKucirkova]

I believe we should teach coding and computational thinking not only to children but also to their parents/carers, grandparents, teachers and other media mentors. It should be a community approach to creating instead of consuming technology. An article summarising this view and some research is available here:
theconversation.com/coding-classes-should-bring-in-everyone-not-just-children-31266

[GoAndDoSomeWork]

Learning how to code isn't just about becoming a games developer or another straight IT job. In many disciplines understanding how to write a simple for loop or if statement can save hours of time for example laboriously sifting through data. I teach a structured programming language to academics who have realised that they cannot keep up with current research without at least some understanding of coding. They come from across the natural and physical sciences with backgrounds in the biological sciences, chemistry, medicine and psychology. I am constantly amazed by what long convoluted routes they have to take to analysing their data sets and ideas they think are impossible to implement because they have never previously been introduced to basic programming concepts. It is also disheartening to see how difficult they find the concept of basic loops - which to a mathematician is child's play.

Introducing the concept of loops, conditional statements and logical operators at an early age will help them to become imbedded in a child's natural language just as other mathematical concepts are and so that the jump to coding or analysing data will be much smaller. There is no need for gender bias - coding doesn't have to be all about gaming there are many applications which can appeal to different interests.

My major concern however is the use of primary teachers to teach coding - it is as worrying as the new necessity for teaching a foreign language. In both cases many teachers will only be half a step of the children in their knowledge - more obvious in language teaching will be terrible accents and pronunciation whilst in computer teaching will be their inability to understand alternative but equally valid approaches taken by children.

[FamiliesShareGerms]

DS is loving this at school and I have hopes for him being the next Bill Gates. The only downside is that he wants to practice at home, and we don't currently have the IT to allow him to do this (work computers with firewalls that stop the programmes running properly; Apple products that also don't run the programmes properly), and it must surely become another difference between families who "have" and "have not".