Curriculum review change from GCSE computer science to ICT

[UnambiguouslySensible]

I wondered if I could ask what people think about the curriculum review proposal to change from GCSE computer science to ICT?

DS is utterly devoted to his GCSE computer science studies. However, I had to remove him from school and home school him, in order to get access to good teaching. It was like that because of a severe shortage of specialist teachers in the school.

We've also noticed that the universities emphasise maths and further maths for entry to university computer science courses. They don't seem to mind whether applicants have studied computer science at GCSE or A level.

Conversely, there have been articles in the press saying that employers are having problems getting good coders. This is because the computer science graduates are great mathematicians but inexperienced at actual coding. The employers are then having to get them trained on the job.

I wondered if anyone had any thoughts on it all?

DS absolutely loves GCSE computer sciene and is unstoppable in his enthusiasm. He is only sad for those who won't get to study this course once it is switched to ICT.

I m maths graduate n later on went into coding masters n started career as developer.

maths is problem solving skill n it does help a lot to say 80% but coding is a art n practiced skill

one cannot just start coding but if you are not a problem solver n breakdown major task into smaller then you won’t be a good coder

maths I will say is baseline . I agree computer science at gcse shouldn’t be a must but it should be at a levels for students to get an idea of what their life is likely to be

I did computer science at uni 20 odd years ago. I had GCSE ICT and was fine. I didn’t even have maths A Level which I know is unusual but not all universities required it. I had to do a maths module and pass in my first year instead. It was supposed to be further maths A level equivalent. Might have changed since I studied of course. Those with past qualifications were ahead of the others but not more than a hobby coder would have been. If I could go back I’d take the year in industry as most jumped straight into jobs at large corporates after graduating.

Computer Science GCSE (especially the edexcel exam board) is an interesting course that teaches the basics of coding and algorithms and how data is represented on computers and digital computers and networks work.

Useful not just for people that want to work in the sector but to help understand the foundations of how modern technology works.

I think its a hugely regressive step to lump it together with IT and digital literacy in one qualification. I suspect not much of anything will be learnt.

Am I completely misremembering here - wasn't 'ICT' (apart from in the sense of learning the stuff that relates to other areas of the curriculum) dropped and replaced by GCSE Computer Science only a few years ago?

Yes that's right.

Obviously there should be two separate GCSEs one in Computer Science and one in IT. Or a GCSE in Computer Science and a certifcate in IT skills. As the two are not really related other than that they both involve computers.

However if that was the case the independent schools and grammar schools and children in the top maths sets at comprehensives would choose computer science over IT as they would find it more academically challenging and interesting, much like the OPs son.

That being the case I guess its important no one gets to study Computer Science in case some children are unfairly advantaged.

I am no fan of this government but I read the change as increasing the scope of the computer science curriculum at GCSE, with a potential name change, including some AI and data science and making it more interesting to girls (there have been declining numbers) and then adding an extra level 3 in AI and data science. I would prefer an additional qualification was created to give children more choice and some can stick with computer science if they wish but I didn’t read it as going back to making everyone do ICT. I do think though, it won’t change the OPs child’s ability to study computer science at university (assuming of course that’s not scrapped!)

There is already a lot of content to be covered and a whole new skill to be acquired. So it's hard to see how introducing information technology and digital literacy will leave much space for actual computer science to be learnt.

It's impossible to learn much that is meaningful about AI at this stage (linear algebra and coding fluency being prerequisites for a serious technical look at it). Though I wouldn't disagree with including some content on broad AI principles in the current gcse and booting out some other content to make space.

My fear is that the new gcse will be so broad as to be meaningless. It's only two hours of teaching time a week alongside 9 other subjects!

However I guess they might be able to find more people to teach it if they make it sufficiently easy.

Also no idea why they want to create a whole new A level in AI and data science. Surely better to update the current spec for computer science A level and include a module on this.

So they can try to brain wash kids into dismissing anything they consider misinformation probably.

Thanks. I have a memory of DS1 doing something ?called an IT driver's licence(???), with the GCSE being 'ICT'(?), but DD (different school) and DS2 (same school, but 6 years later), just having the 'IT' elements included in relevant other subject teaching, with GCSE CS as an option.

The way it's being discussed is a bit ham-fisted, hopefully it'll be clearer after the consultation that's meant to come, but I do think it's a good idea for the education system to teach digital skills from the ground up and stop presuming 'digital natives' have computer skills beyond applications that have designed for ease of use.

Whether this means bringing back an IT qualification and/or reforming the national curriculum before getting to KS4 (I lean towards the latter being a priority, knowing schools that do no computer-based qualifications), I'm not sure, noth may be best.

My DS2 attends a secondary where everyone does a Digital Information Technology qualification, and this came about because the Computer Science teachers were finding that they simply didn't have time to get all students up to speed on IT skills alongside teaching Computer Science.

And yeah, a lot of schools are struggling for Computer Science staff and sadly in some schools, Computer Science in KS3 has been watered down to using Scratch and similar applications meant for ease of use that while a great start, aren't getting into it the way those who want to develop those skills need. My DDs went to a school where it was absolutely abysmal and we had a lot of comments about well my kids type and how surprising it was that my kids can touch type, which when I was growing up was a skill drilled into us from around 8, but a lot of those what were once considered basic computer skills have just faded under the idea that because kids have grown up with tech they must know it well.

Thanks. I have a memory of DS1 doing something ?called an IT driver's licence(???),

Was it the European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL) or International Computer Driving License (ICDL)? I think the latter is just a renaming of the former, there have been a lot of ICT qualifications that have come and gone or rebranded that it's easy to lose track of names, I think.

Honestly I think a complusory digital skills certificate (which could also be taken in KS3) and an updated optional Computer Science GCSE would have been perfect. I think it's a real shame the government have chosen to go down this route.

Where I have tried to argue the above, the counter argument has been, we can't have a two tier system and Computer Science is too hard for the majority. I don't think it would be nearly as hard if it was better taught. I also hate this mentality that if some children aren't able to do something or aren't interested in it then nobody should get the opportunity.

In terms of well you can do the degree in Computer Science anyway. True enough but it might be nice if more people in the country had some basic understanding of how tech works rather than just those that study it at university and it's relevant to a lot of non computer science degrees as well.

@UnambiguouslySensible @MarchingFrogs the recommendation is to replace Computer Science GCSE with "Computing GCSE", not "ICT GCSE".

The ECDL driving license still exists. It is a standalone qualification. In the 2010s, some schools replaced the GCSE ICT with ECDL Level 2 courses, since ECDL was, for a time, included in school performance tables and treated as GCSE-equivalent, but that inclusion was withdrawn in 2018.

Sorry - yes you're right that it is a change from computer science to Computing. Not ICT.

Thanks for the comments. I agree very much with @Rosmarino.

Indeed. A major problem with that was that many ICT teachers were not really qualified to teach computer science (some switched to maths teaching because it was easier to brush up their maths than learn computer science). There have been problems ever since with supply of computer science, which is why it isn't always offered.

My elder one did the ECDL and it was pretty good at making sure she had core skills (though she did struggle with the database section). I think my younger one would have benefited too.

The coding part of the GCSE has been problematic, and having a GCSE without coding also seems pointless.

Computer Science A-level is offered at my school, but quite often the kids end up teaching themselves for a large part of the course because the computer science teacher quits and we can't find a replacement for sometimes as long as a year. One year we cancelled the computer science GCSE halfway through the course rather than drafting in any old teacher to teach it and the backlash from parents was immense, like we hadn't made enough effort to find a teacher. So now we just staff it with any teacher willing to follow a textbook.

Back when Gove ditched ICT it was because he insisted that young people were all digital natives and didn't need teaching how to use Word or Excel, they'd just be able to pick it up easily. That turned out to be absolute bollocks, as anyone who has told a young person to just copy a file to a different directory and then rename it in Explorer can attest.

Adding back in actively teaching computer skills to young people who have been raised on phones and tablets is a positive move.

Yes but it ought to be as well as Computer Science rather than (partially) replacing it.

Also IT skills are not an academic subject. Much better suited to pass/fail certificate (with appropriate league table points) that is regularly updated rather a GCSE.

@noblegiraffe I hear what you say about the teacher shortage but I also think its a real shame to give up on that basis right now.

The numbers studying Computer Science at degree level have grown dramatically. Whilst it still opens up some great job opportunities its not quite the automatic passport to extremely well paid work that is was a few years back (well maybe if you go to Oxbridge or Imperial).

On that basis I think there could be quite a few decent computing teachers in the pipeline, though possibly not if their new role is mainly teaching children how to use PowerPoint.

We had more IT teachers when it did involve teaching them PowerPoint!

I get what you're saying about the GCSE but it feeds back into the KS3 curriculum. I, like many other maths teachers, have been roped into teaching computing at various points in the last decade (only KS3 for me, thankfully, but I know others have done GCSE). I've been teaching kids how to convert numbers into binary and back, or whatever, then we get to A-level maths where they have to manipulate something called the Large Dataset - a huge Excel spreadsheet, and they have literally no idea what they're doing. Perhaps that time spent converting binary or making another scratch game could have been spent learning how to do a graph or find the average of a column of numbers in Excel.

Look literally any adult could teach digital skills, in terms of the subject knowledge required, with a bit of prep. So that's why there was no shortage of IT teachers. It's skilled work, for sure, but the skills are soft skills relating to behaviour management etc. No real advantage to having a Computer Science degree or equivalent.

I think KS3 Computing is probably a shock coming from Maths. In most schools so little time is allocated to Computing there isn't a chance to learn much. I think this is true of quite a few subjects and that sometimes these years feel wasted as there is so much breadth in the curriculum many children are just flitting from subject to subject without really engaging with the material.

I do think however KS3 is an appropriate time to learn some digital skills such as spreadsheets and this already happens at many schools.

In terms of Computer Science itself at KS3 I think teaching pupils what an algorithm is, the broad priniciples of how a digital computer works and how data gets sent across the internet is useful. An introduction to programming is also useful so that children can see if they would be interested in the GCSE.

I am not convinced Scratch is that helpful. Potentially it could be used to teach some concepts but it has to be done well or its a bit of a waste of time.

@UnambiguouslySensible "Conversely, there have been articles in the press saying that employers are having problems getting good coders. This is because the computer science graduates are great mathematicians but inexperienced at actual coding. The employers are then having to get them trained on the job."

Ds did a maths based computer science degree at Durham who only wanted maths and further maths for entry. Ds had CS GCSE and A level, loves it and agrees that coming in with no GCSE or A level CS was problematic when it came to lectures as the basic stuff wasn't explained. Ds says it makes the transition to uni harder. You sit in a lecture and don't understand the CS stuff, you have the then learn the basic CS stuff underneath to then rewatch the lecture for it to make sense. Ds ended up doing a lot of peer on peer teaching to help people out.

There are software engineering degrees too.

Coding wise this isn't really taught at any stage which is potentially why employers need to teach them to code their way. He recommends websites like Code Wars and videos on how to write clean and readable code on youtube. Better code is simple and readable. Ds did a lot of coding outside of GCSE and beyond.

Ds is a software engineer graduate with a view to going into DevOps later down the line. He says the coding part comes with being in the industry and surrounded by people who have years of experience and you learn from them. He says the clean and better code is a great foundation and helps you understand why experienced people write code in a certain way.

Your son probably already knows about Craig and Dave on youtube for CS GCSE course content. We were lucky my children had incredible teachers for CS.

Also, neither schools (or for that matter most Universities) are trying to teach vocational skills when they teach Computer Science. Of course young people will need to learn new things at work and throughout their careers.

Hopefully they will develop an excellent conceptual understanding of how things work: algorithms, data structures, networks etc and good problem solving skills.

I learnt Pascal at university. I have never used it directly but many of the concepts are similar to what I did end up doing and so it was still useful.

We currently have a large cohort for both gcse and a level computing, and the students do well. But when the teachers leave, we will not be able to replace them.

Why do you think you wouldn't be able to get any more computing teachers?