What do you know about coding? Tell The Sunday Times for a chance to win a £250 John Lewis voucher NOW CLOSED

[MichelleMumsnet]

The Sunday Times have asked us to let Mumsnetters know that they’re running a Learn to Code series this weekend to coincide with the inclusion of coding in the national curriculum.

They told us: “With coding hitting the national curriculum this week, and our readers becoming more tech-savvy than ever, we will be demystifing computer programming in this weekend's edition of the paper. In partnership with Decoded, a company that specialises in digital training, the Learn to Code in a Day guide out this Sunday will take readers step-by-step through app-making.”.

“Editorial Director Eleanor Mills, who did Decoded's Code in a Day course herself, said: 'This is an exciting moment for us as we are the first British newspaper to offer a course like this. With five year-olds now learning computer programming in school, it is essential that adults keep up too.”

“If you’re nodding whilst reading the above then why not give it a go yourself? The easy guide will empower and equip you with the knowledge needed to tackle those potential conversations with your children over homework after school."

“Simply sign up to The Sunday Times for a £1 for 30-day trial and start learning now: thetim.es/1uD6qml”

So, what do you think about the addition of coding to the curriculum? Do you think it’s beneficial for children to learn this from a young age? Is this something you think you could get your head around when you were younger? Are there any other additions to the curriculum you feel are necessary for children to cope with today’s technologies?

Everyone who adds their thoughts to this thread will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will win a £250 John Lewis voucher.

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

Totally agree that more time should be spent on requirements, planning and design - no point in a computer system no one will use. If you don't spend the time planning, you'll spend it fixing problems anyway, so might as well try and get it right up front.

Really, really don't like gendering it, though. There are more than enough gender issues in IT.

Ebearhug - sorry, I probably didn't explain myself very well in my previous post when I put genders on the different skills - dangers of typing a serious post when too tired!

I did put inverted commas around male and female, plus say that it was for want of a better word and I'm still too tired to think of the right terms to use. If you can think of what I should be putting, please say and help my sleepy brain! And yes, I am generalising from my experience, it was just to try to explain my points more clearly.

However, the reasons that those words sprung to mind - having spent the last 20 plus years working in the industry, the coders have been almost exclusively men. Project managers, particularly the technical ones, tend to be men. On the design side, whilst it's not exclusively women, there are many more women than there are in other areas of software development. And until relatively recently, it has been seen as 'the easy bit' whereas coding is 'the difficult bit' and has been given significantly more time and resources. And when you point out issues that you could have solved if they had done things properly to start with, their response isn't to say 'yes, we made a mistake, next time we'll get you in at the beginning so this doesn't happen again' it's often 'we don't want you causing any trouble so we won't bother with you again' and then they wonder why they have a product that their users don't like. It's beginning to change but it's not a done deal yet.

It's the fact that if you break down the different component parts into those that are traditionally thought of as the ones that men are good at vs the ones that women are traditionally thought of being good at, despite both being important in the successful creation of a system, yet again as in so many areas of life it's the 'male' skills that are being promoted as being necessary and important whilst the 'female' skills have been passed over when the new curriculum was created. So in that respect it does seem like an #everydaysexism issue - if both had been given equal prominence in the curriculum I wouldn't have had an issue - indeed I'd have loved it as I think it is important that both boys and girls get a good understanding of all aspects of system development, not just the coding.

And as for actual gender issues in the industry - yep, encountered lots of those over the years, particularly when I've been the only female in a company or on a product team or at least the only technical female around. This isn't really the place for discussing that - other than to say that I think that by doing just coding in schools will help perpetuate the domination of men within the software industry. They need to look at everything and show how it fits together for everyone to have a better understanding and be able to do all aspects, not just the coding.

I have no idea about it! Agree it would be useful for children to learn about it from the outset though.

I think it's a great idea - we live in a brave new technological world, and children need to be equipped for it. It'll help enormously with maths too. I won't be able to help with the homework mind ;) I remember getting a book out the library and coding my own spectrum game - took all day, and that's the limit of my technical ability!

Fantastic idea and I´d be up for a workshop-never too late...

All of my 4 children under 10 are learning coding at some level. To them it's not about learning, it's about fun. They program robots, or invent basic games and at this age, they pick things up very quickly indeed. My youngest was confidently using the iPad aged 3 and my eldest writes programs in Scratch. Why do we as parents think it is beneficial?

-Coding teaches them to be 'active' rather than 'passive' users of technology.
-Coding improves problem-solving and thinking skills.
-Coding promotes creativity and curiosity.
-Coding teaches persistence, in trying a new way when things fail to work.

Programming is a good skill to have, but it's not necessarily about the end goal. It generates lifelong transferable skills, but the reality is that we now live engaging with and surrounded by technology every day. We teach children to decode their own spoken language, so why not computer language?

I'm surprised it's taken so long to introduce coding in schools.

I think that by doing just coding in schools will help perpetuate the domination of men within the software industry.

Don't you think it will help more girls consider it as a career, because they'll have been thinking about it and the skills involved from a young age, so they'll know it's something girls can do? It won't be entirely that simple - not as many girls go on to study maths at higher levels, despite everyone having to do maths at school, but it must help.

There are far more roles in IT than a lot of people realise; it can be very varied and flexible.

It's only gendered because we socialise children that way. There's no reason men can't think about how user-friendly an application is. I totally agree that there isn't enough emphasis on planning and requirements in most IT projects, how users will actually use an application. But talking about it in terms of male and female skills is just going to perpetuate the idea that only boys or girls can do certain things well, and it's entirely unnecessary. Talk about the skills which we need more of, sure, but stop making it so gendered! It means both genders get limited by expectations, and we all suffer from that. We should expect more from men as well as women - men in programming can learn to think outside gendered expectations, just as women can, but most businesses still need to understand how it will benefit them.

If coding in schools is well taught (and that will depend a lot on how well it's implemented, and I don't honestly have that much faith that that will happen as well as it can,) then it can help break down expectations around gender and how children get socialised according to gender. The sooner people stop talking about what men and women can do and what skills are needed, the better. Giving everyone a grounding in those skills should help, even if it's not the whole picture.

I think its an excellent idea to introduce coding. The world is powered by code these days. As someone who has been a developer (a bad one I hasten to add - I never really quite understood what I was doing) introducing it early seems like a wonderful idea - I didn't learn it until I started my masters in IT at 24.

I think it's absolutely essential to have coding on the curriculum and ideally also an understanding of the importance of computers - not just how they work, but how they run all our systems.

As well as being an important skill in itself, I wish it was on the curriculum because it comes naturally to my dyslexic 9yo DS. He's great at sideways thinking, problem-solving, numerical solutions to things, and he loves coding. But as he struggles with reading and writing, memory, etc his experience of being at school is that he's always behind. Teaching coding could tap into those differences, different kinds of minds and natural affinities. Many people with ASD and dyslexia excel at coding and it would be a way to integrate them, boost their self-esteem in the school environment, and encourage them early on to work towards a dream career.

My DS is just very lucky that he has relatives who are coders and have been able to reach him. I do now know a bit about coding myself, as he has been teaching me :).

oops teach him not reach.

I'd have thought that introducing 'coding' to all schoolkids would help with the problems zipzap identifies. It should demystify it, help it become seen as a tool, a means to an end rather than an end in itself. Not just the preserve of geeky kids who like fiddling with code but people who want to build something useful and usable. As I said downthread, I write code for a living... I don't get up in the morning to 'code', I get up to create something that will help scientists do their research. Coding is the relatively easy bit - having (a) something worth writing and (b) designing it to be usable is the harder part.

The nearly 4yr old girl I care for has started simple coding using an iPad app. The app uses simple icons as commands to control movement of onscreen robot. It is simple logic and pattern recognition resulting in using a simple procedure.

I think it is great to introduce concepts early on then as children get older they can expand on it into a simple programming language.

I think it's a brilliant idea and far more useful than some of the things that are being taught.

So far my DS school have only offered coding as a lunchtime club, as long as the basics are being taught in class well, I have no problem with my DS learning coding in his lunch hour.

I'm sure teachers will adapt the learning to the age of the children - I think it's a great idea

have only een first 50 messages (of 350+) but interested to see this topic - a school head teacher (and friend) asked me to write something as an introduction, for her staff, because unlike initiatives under Labour, where there were resources provided, the LEA no longer provides much (cut from 30+ to 2 staff in some specific area), and 'dumping' this on the Nat. Curriculum means it will be handled in completely arbitrary and different ways across the country, with no set standard or resources to call on.

Just glad I learned programming in the late 70s and early 80s (leading to me getting to degree level and membership of the BCS), but my knowledge is not suited to a lot of the newer devices and languages/ development systems.

Now in my mid 50s, I'm still learning and keen, but have probably learned too many techniques that won't work in this real-time/ internet/ mobile / tablet world, or at least, may be done in a better, faster, more efficient way...

I think it's a great idea, I wish I knew how to do it :D

I wok in Technology and used to code on a daily basis, and although I no longer actually code myself, knowledge to review and understand what has been written is very beneficial.

I am however torn on whether or not coding is actually required to be part of the compulsory education, or whether it should be an elective subject. There are plenty of jobs out there where coding will just not be required

unlike initiatives under Labour, where there were resources provided, the LEA no longer provides much (cut from 30+ to 2 staff in some specific area), and 'dumping' this on the Nat. Curriculum means it will be handled in completely arbitrary and different ways across the country, with no set standard or resources to call on.

Yes, that's what I fear - it's a good idea, but the implementation and lack of resources will probably undermine the intentions.

There's plenty of jobs for which all sorts of things we teach children as standard aren't required. But I can't think of many where an ability to think logically and plan a sequence of events might not come in handy.

Lunchtime clubs I suspect would exacerbate the gender divide... my observation is that boys are more inclined to 'play' with code - girls are more likely to use it if they're given a real problem to solve (obviously massive over-generalisation!!!) ... but optional activities are more likely to fall foul of the 'boy thing'/'girl thing' artificial self-selection than something that they all have to do. (like cookery and basic sewing which they also all should learn)

What a great idea. Kids are move computer literate now so learning this at any early age would have great benefits x

I think 5 years old is much to young to start to learn coding, at this age there is so much for them to learn with just the basics. However I think it is a good idea to cover this subject from the age of 12 onwards

I think the inclusion of coding in the national curriculum is a really good idea though I know very little about it myself so would like to learn more.

I think it's a smashing idea. Times are changing, and we don't want to fall behind. We need to work hard to keep up with the ever-changing technological advances. All for it.