Anyone requested that their (state) secondary start offering a GCSE?

I would say you're too late for next academic year. Timetables in most secondary schools will already have been blocked to the extent than a new subject won't fit.

I think they should make Computing/coding a mandatory subject at school. When I hear people say this could turn them off, or 'the best people I know taught themselves.' It is so annoying - course they are there was no-one to teach them! OR in the case of some of the people I know, they brothers or dads have taught them. And I am sure there are loads of kids turned off from English, maths and 3 sciences which are all mandatory. Yes I get that finding people to teach coding it tricky - I have a computing degree and I don't think I would be good enough. We need to somehow get people in the industry to come and do some time in schools. And it is not just a question of money. None of the private schools I have gone to see do it either - they don't have a clue about how important this is for our children's and this country's future. When I was at school, computing was done by a group of nerds one lunch time a week. I just assumed that it was a subject by now! (By the way I did not join that group)

I spoke to my son about this last night. He is adamant that Maths and Physics should be the subjects taught at GCSE level. In fact, he would prefer to see a change where they don't have to do all three sciences as he, for example, has no interest whatsoever in Biology, but has to do it either stand alone (to access triple science) or as part of a mixed paper (in double).

He says he is perfectly happy to do any programming on offer at school and he would find it fun but, really, that's not the point. Once he gets on in life, programming is what he will be taught, but Maths and Physics is what those employers or lecturers will expect him to actually know and, if he doesn't, will he even get opportunity, losing out to those with great academic skills.

Agree with TalkinPeace - nothing wrong at all with teaching the basic skills.

I guess my feeling is, if there is a teacher with an interest / the skills who can teach along the lines suggested by TiP & noblegiraffe (and its the sort of thing that often seems to get picked up in a lunchtime club), then great.

But given limited curriculum time (and teacher funding), I'm not 100% sure it is the best use of resources to insist on it, IYSWIM.

Teaching them some sort of formal programming language would probably be dull and pointlessly out of date in terms of the job market. A GCSE in C++ will get them nowhere.

Getting them to muck about with code, like a modern equivalent of logo, to get the idea of following sequences of instructions is fine. Even Excel can be used to teach important expressions like 'If....Then....', also PowerPoint when sequencing actions within slides.
The kids who are really into computers will probably be way ahead of the class and instruction material from day one. I taught a fifteen year old who already ran his own web design company, and another who was quite proficient at hacking.

It's obvious that the ICT curriculum needs constant updating because what can be achieved with computers is always changing. Gove has already announced schools can now do their own thing, so schools will obviously be looking into the various options already.

Litten
Logo that is mentioned in that article was EXCELLENT - I remember seeing it.
What has gone WRONG is that employers have said "we want ready made office proles" so "ICT" turned into "Microsoft Office"
Its a bit like my bugbear (much vented on these forums) about over narrowing at O and A level into -ology subjects.
The programming skills that need to be taught are those that teach children how to think in a logical manner - you tell it to turn right it turns right
so a course based on Logo and MIT's scratch would never be "out of date" because it is sideways of the commercial stuff but will give kids the skills to pick up the commercial stuff double quick.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logo_(programming_language)
scratch.mit.edu/

If programming is taught in schools (and it isn't very often - there is some in AS computing and I think there will be some in the new Computing GCSEs as well) it is usually a rather dated language (like Pascal) that is taught, but to be fair, once a child has mastered the basics in one language it's not too difficult to learn another more useful one, so I think the main problem is that very few children learn programming at school rather than that what they learn is out of date.

As a country we do lag behind others in school age programming skills. There is an Informatics Olympiad for school age children which is essentially a programming algorithm competition. Only 750 children entered this years contest, the top 4 will go on to the International Olympiad in Informatics, but usually the UK does not fare all that well against other countries in the international round (with occasional exceptions).

I agree 100% with Kez and Giraffe - any programming learned at school is likely to be out of date by the time they're looking for a job (if not out of date already when they're learning it), and those who are interested/motivated can undoubtedly find plenty of resources online to play with in their own time.

Even when I was at school in the dark ages (well, O levels rather than GCSEs) the recommendation was to avoid Computer studies for exactly this reason.

Fortunately today's students are less likely to have to put their computer in the fridge before it will work (the joy of the oh-so-reliable ZX81 ) or to need to try to save their programmes onto scratchy cassette tape previously used to record Duran Duran off Radio 1!!!

My son wants to be a programmer or systems analyst (or webdesigner if he cant cope academically - he is dyslexic) but he says he needs Maths and physics and the programming can wait really (except he doesn't want it to wait so does it himself at home).

It is different from ICT and I suspect ICT is very useful for many children - maybe not academically stretching but useful - whereas coding appeals and will be useful to a much smaller group of students.

I would expect a school to have suitably qualified staff, yes. I don't know the syllabus of that GCSE so don't know if they'd need to understand programming or not. I know issues can arise with teaching when the are unforeseen circumstances - say a course is running and a teacher goes sick, so the replacement isn't as good, but to offer a new course in the first place, you would expect the teacher to be adequately qualified.

Litten
it is "code" in that its HTML (and tell him I hate black on pink websites !!)

but its not "code" in that its now what makes Windows 7 or Excel work ....
then again, learning how to write HTML and then CSS and then Java is an excellent start.
I wrote the original version of my DHs website and still maintain it so I'm rather a closet geek as well as a bean counter -
and the easy way to pick up nice bits of HTML code is to right click website you like and then copy and paste

Here's the UN report on German Education.

ampere this report analyses all sort of information about education in various countries. It's quite complimentary about Australia in terms of social equality - see the graph on page 41 and discussion on page 42.

If you want a quick at a glance picture of education in various countries and how it links to social equality, here's a graph (the same as the one on page 41 in the report I linked to). While the UK isn't great, Germany is obviously terrible! (data from 2001)

"Code a basic web page"
but HTML is not programming, its just a form of WYSIWYG macro much of it.

Right click anywhere on this screen (yes, this one)
near the bottom should be "view page source"
click on it
you are now looking at the HTML code for Mumsnet.
It works on any web page.

That's good Litten tree. Hopefully they have a teacher with the right training on their staff already.

One can hardly compare a Primary with a Secondary. By GCSE a student has a fixed curriculum - x hours of core teaching x hours of option teaching and x hours of required elements like PE, RE etc

It's not a case of finding time. The time is there - if you use an option block. The time is not there - if you don't use an option block.

So, assuming a GCSE is offered, the time is there, now it comes to finances. You already have subject specialists on the books taking all the staffing budget. Programmers are not likely to be on the books. At GCSE the teachers have to really know their stuff, so the teachers have to be the right ones. You also need to be able to appeal to 30 students to pick it. It's no good everyone on Mumsnet wanting the option, only for students themselves to not apply in the number needed.

It's a completely different situation than arranging more French at primary level teaching for all/almost all pupils, where the pupils have no choice but to do it and the teacher could be, but wouldn't need to be trained in French to as high a level as a GCSE teacher.

It's not being negative. It's being realistic.

Blimey, don't you lot preach a litany of despair? What happened to striving to make your good better, and your better, best?

FWIW my sons primary, following parental requests, rearranged their school day, and presumably, successfully their 'finances' to meet the 'demand' for twice as much French teaching as was being offered under the NC. It was felt that the French on offer was 'token', perhaps like the teaching of just ICT to kids bright enough to handle coding (ICT here maybe being the equivalent of teaching secondary modern girls touch typing skills in the 1970s, maybe?) therefore they wanted to go one step further and consolidate that learning which they managed to do, so it isn't impossible.

Could you link to the UN report about Germany and social equity please? I'd be really interested in reading that, and seeing where, for instance, Australia comes, as I've had first hand experience of all 3 systems.

I had to smile a bit at the reference to private schools and CS cos yes, I must admit the 2 boys I know personally in private secondaries are being taught CS, not ICT!

Let us know how you get on with the Head, if you broach the issue of CS over ICT, OP!

No, she said 'I also despair of that stupid, state-school English attitude of 'all DC are of equal intelligence and thus must be taught exactly the same curriculum regardless of whether they have the skills to master half of it'.'

I don't think I've ever come across anyone with that attitude in a state school.

It is strange also, that the OP thinks it is fine that secondary modern girls were taught typing without any opportunity for physics O-level yet criticises the German system (which, by the way, has been condemned by the UN for perpetuating social inequality) which is very similar to the old tripartite system because it separates children out too early. Volcan was also correct to point out that some girls at the secondary modern would have achieved the same score on the 11+ as boys who made it to the grammar and therefore shouldn't be automatically considered as unsuitable for physics O-level simply because they weren't at the grammar school.

Comps don't teach all children the same curriculum and they don't make students who can't cope sit triple science on the off-chance that they'll suddenly get physics aged 16. The OP seems to have some bizarre idea that the national curriculum means that all the kids sit through exactly the same lessons all the way through secondary school. Which is bollocks.

Some of those courses offer more difficult units which do include programming (I believe) but the units have low pass rates. For every parent who would be happy for their child to be pushed and given the opportunity to do the unit and accepts they stand a higher chance of failure, you will have two parents who want their child to achieve the highest grade possible and not sit that unit.

It's not possible to run - on a state school budget - small GCSE groups and it's a brave Head to expect her students to accept lower grades as an offset for a better overall programming experience.

And all of that assumes the school have some one on the staff roll already that can deliver that unit.

Our school has offered it as a twilight session in the past year and the small group doing it have done it as an extra unit not instead of, so should get the best grade they are capable of and have the experience too. However, involved in this was a most wonderful teacher prepared to do this under their current contract. Schools cannot employ new teachers on the basis they do it out of love for the school nor can they expect current teachers to offer it beyond a period considered reasonable by the teacher themselves. So, that's not a long term solution.

A good academic school certainly should be offering rigorous academic options and those schools ought to lead really as they have they best chance of filling a class of 30 able to achieve in the subject but, yet again, it has to be accepted that could take some time.

Actually I think the OP says that another poster here seems to be "of the opinion that all students are of equal intelligence", something about the silly idea that an average class of SM girls shouldn't be patronised with typing as they should all 'have a go' at was it physics 'O' level?, regardless of their chance of passing it because there are some DC at a SM who might pass it.

IMO I'd suggest to the Head of teh school that it's something to consider, supplying the relevant links (I also read that 'We must teach our kids to Code' article in one of the broadsheets and I confess I hadn't realised ICT was another one of those 'fudge' make-up-the-GCSE-numbers subjects, that it didn't teach coding!)