Gove's latest - computer programming for all...

That's interesting JessM. Michael Gove seems to hitch a ride with the latest fads. My grandson's grammar school in Trafford has started on a curriculum of coding/programming, which apparently is more appropriate for the future workplace - he's nearly 12, so here's hoping this fad will last whilst he gets through college and university (she says cynically!) over the next 9 or 10 years.

Another example of sheepdip politics - one size had better fit all!

I agree, JessM, but if teachers can be found to teach computer science, surely this could be part of the technology programme in the school; use of ICT could be subsumed into business studies courses. Children in primary schools already get a pretty good grounding in the use of software and as things are, computer literacy should be a basic part of a child's education.
Carol, I like the description 'sheepdip politics'!

As a former ICT adviser / inspector I have been watching this debate with interest. Basically I think we have got ICT in primary schools more or less right (not perfect by any means), but there has always been a problem with ICT in secondary schools, exacerbated by a shortage of ICT teachers. I think you do need to make the distinction between digital literacy (which is basically what the primary curriculum and most of Key Stage 3 is about) and the various Key Stage 4 (14-16) courses. I think the idea of doing some more exciting programming is a good one, but as Jess says it will be very hard to find teachers for this. Of course, it may be that some of this can and should be delivered remotely, but if it isn't already underway then it certainly won't be ready quickly.
For once, I am not jumping up and down with rage at what Gove has suggested, but it will be interesting to see what is actually proposed. One thing I do know is that the teaching profession has to be at the heart of this. I remember when I was a freshed-faced ICT adviser back in the eighties, being told by an "expert" from industry that what we had to teach the children to do was to learn to program in MS DOS; that would have been useful - wouldn't it?

That's just it, Mamie. So-called experts are asked to give their opinions so the government can fast-track ideas they may have generated without doing the groundwork. Before retirement, I attended many a forum at the Ministry of Justice, convened by some civil servant who had been moved into a new post and wanted to get a handle on what was current thinking about whichever issue they had to deliver information on to a minister. Our job was to educate them in the space of a morning! The cheapest way to gather information was to summon staff from all parts of the country, so the civil servants could sit in their ivory tower and not have to travel out of London.

Multi-grade meetings would be held to generate some 'smart' ideas, and we would see these suggestions transformed into policy documents without being tested elsewhere. Before we knew it, a paper or set of guidelines would have been issued nationally, and accompanying targets imposed on all staff.

This woolly thinking can get quite ridiculous, and show up in legislation. For example, a decade or so ago, it was decided that 'just desserts' (yes, the spelling is correct!) would be meted out to repeat offenders, so that disproportionate sentences could be justified, on the advice of 'experts.' We ended up with silly jail sentences e.g. for theft of a box off tissues value £2, a man who had committed two previous, more serious offences, was sent to prison for 2 weeks! This was because he had racked up three convictions. That legislation was soon got rid of, but shows how barmy 'experts' can be.

Michael Gove will get information from civil servants who don't always know what they are talking about.

Isn't that true, Mamie. You never know what developments are just around the corner. The young people now in school will be the ones that implement these developments. My GS, aged 7, is already taking an interest in re-programming computer games.

Quite agree Carol. I remember being on a consultation event just as you describe and the person leading it said; "At some point in the morning someone will come from the DfES (or whatever it was at that point), you will know who they are because they will be wearing red braces and look about ten years old". And they did.

Haha Mamie. Yes, same here - it seems to be their uniform. They're graduate whizzkids who've been told if they get some groundwork in various government departments they will be fast-tracked into executive positions by the time they're thirty. There's an allegedly true story about one new entrant being placed with the DWP and when chairing a meeting about family budgets for the pensioned and unemployed population, he suggested that they could cut budgets by doing their own interior designing!

I know someone who was asked to be part of a tory "think tank" type thing on a particular topic. He went along once just to be nosy. Apparently the level of thinking about policy was very low.
I am all for computer programming for grammar schools and kids who are in upper ability levels in english maths and science. But for those struggling to master the basics it is surely a waste of time. And there is no business studies in the national curriculum is there.
It is true though mamie that you can see some fantastic use of powerpoint in year 8 students that cant really read yet!
One day Gove is spouting about giving control to schools and the next intervening at quite a detailed level in what we should teach. Any day now he will make a modern foreign language compulsory again...

I can't think these ideas about programming are anything other than one possible sort of Key Stage 4 course. Business studies is normally available at Key Stage 4 too, I would hate to see it any earlier. I am intrigued about the idea of throwing out the Programmes of Study - surely not at Key Stage 1 and 2? Is the Key Stage 3 curriculum that bad? It shouldn't be - the ideas in the Key Stage 3 ICT strategy were pretty sound, I thought.
It made me really cross when he had a go at the Labour government for spending money on hardware. What were the children supposed to work on? All hardware and software goes out of date, surely that is obvious? Yes, it used to be more expensive, but you have to work with what you have got. Oh yes - and an interactive whiteboard is not just an electronic blackboard, it is a far more exciting medium for teaching than that. Grrr....

I am not for computers in primary schools. Let them get their 3 Rs perfect first. Who is to do teach this programming? If he/she were good at it they wouldn't be teaching. What do future employers need? It seems they would like job applicants to have some knowledge of the world we live in, not only the cyber world. How to be clean and tidy and punctual and to be able to plan in advance not only to plan the next 5 minutes by way of their Iphone or mobile.

Then there are thinking skills. Design skills, when you have head full of ideas then you can be taught programming. It seems strange to me that England which has not enough technicians and engineers, lays so much value on programming when other countries first teach their children basic subjects and then at 15 or 16 get to grips with these computing skills at technical colleges prior to University.

Let's face it, most children of ten or even less can teach their parents and probably their teachers a thing or two about using computers. Don't hold with computers in primary schools, Charlotta? That boat has sailed long ago.

I agree Carlotta - if you have a degree in computer programming you are unlikely to want to teach. Unless you got a very low grade perhaps and can't get a job in IT...

I think ICT in the primary curriculum is a wonderful thing that teaches children all sorts of skills and enhances the teaching of literacy, numeracy and subjects across the curriculum. So we will never agree there Charlotta, but it was my life's work for the last twenty years of my career so I may be just a little bit biased.
I would deliver ICT at Key Stage 3 (11-14) across the curriculum -for example, word processing and social media in English and other arts subjects, spreadsheets in maths, science and geography, painting and design software in art etc etc
At GCSE I would go for more challenging courses allowing all sorts of different specialist study, delivered by digital media, skype included.
But then I have retired and I am a bit glad that I am not spending this week at that very exhausing BETT exhibition in London...

Anything to do with computers and, I would imagine, especially programming, is going to be out of date so quickly - long before our primary children reach "the workplace". And what on earth are we as a society going to do with a workforce of programmers with no other skills to mention?
How about producing young people who are literate and numerate as a bit of a novelty?? I think I'm with Charlotta on this one.

PS
I love the idea of "just desserts" - no soup or mains, "just dessert(s)" How often have I said that! Mine's crumble and custard, please!

Mamie we should put you in charge - my only concern is that some of our staff are reluctant to use computers themselves...
I'm not sure about the programming going out of date - I have certainly heard this criticism of the OU computing courses.
But the principles of programming are good training for thinking clearly. You have to analyse and break things down into clear and logical steps.

Thanks Jess - to be honest I am amazed by how little things have moved on since I retired (not claiming cause and effect though!). Yes of course programming languages go out of date, but the skills as you say are transferable; Logo on the BBC computer was great training for programming, logic, shape and space. I think this is where some people don't "get it". It isn't about teaching narrow ICT skills any more than you can teach spelling and grammar out of context. You have to learn, understand and then apply. Imagine learning to drive without any practical application...

Like Marnie, I too was an LEA adviser/inspector in a previous life when curriculum innovation was continuous and unrelenting. I did a research degree (at the same time as a full time job) and spent many years doing school-based research with teachers trying to evaluate the effects on schools of Government imposed change. It may sound simplistic, but it's not just about the things successive Governments want to change, or even why they want change, that makes change viable. Teachers need to feel that the changes make sense and are worthwhile before they commit to them - and how often does that figure large in Government thinking? Why does so much curriculum innovation fail - and then need changing? I still see a continuing cycle of the imposition of change without any real understanding of what makes it work - and what doesn't! It's easier to come up with instant initiatives that polish a new Government's image and give the illusion that they know what they are doing.

Hi Madpotter, I have worked with the management of change before retirement, and saw the highest number of changes to Criminal Justice legislation and practice ever known. Some new initiatives that were highly resourced sank without trace, others with little resourcing developed out of all proprtion and still exist today, and even more were resourced fairly well and one could not predict their success or not. It all depends on whether the people on the ground believe in what they are doing, and can motivate others to carry it through.

I watched a colleague manage a highly contentious programme for offenders that was imposed on every office from on high, with a high profile launch, recruitment of new staff to run it, and far too many open days with promotional materials and free pens, free meals, all day conferences to share the 'vision' and so on. The programme ran despite protests from experienced officers who could see what was lacking (the newly recruited staff didn't hve a clue about work with offenders and how to inspire them to believe their lives could be different), but it was ignored. After two years, the programme managers presented their findings at yet another conference. What they didn't show was how many reoffended, were reconvicted, and whether their offending had reduced, did it have an effect on crime reduction in that area. There were only 15 completers to that programme, despite nearly a hundred starting it. What a complete waste of money and effort. It folded without anyone at the top saying a word, and no lessons were learned, because within weeks they were starting yet another misunderstood programme.

What every good professional knows is that, if you don't get the relationship right between workers and clients, teachers and children, doctors and patients, your attempts to impose change on them will flounder. If the government doesn't give space for teachers to be able to work productively with their children, instead of having to jump through hoops the whole time, how can we expect anything to work?

Tinker tinker tinker and the more headline grabbing the better. Under the last govt I lived through: Morris, Blunkett, Clark, Kelly and Balls. Balls was the only secretary of state to last longer than a year. His main innovation seemed to be to spend huge amounts of money on a giant rainbow graphic for the department that must have cost a lot of money. Every new document had it's own full colour extravaganza rainbow pic. But the others all lasted about a year - they moved so fast that things they said they were going to do never got a chance to happen before the next one overturned it.
Now we have Gove, who, accidents apart will probably be with us for 5 years.
Oh gloom! Not sure which is worse - I think the system is to blame.
My recipe for cutting government expenditure and reducing waste:
1. restrict the amount of legislative time to about 10 weeks a year. So they would only introduce new laws that were really really needed, instead of every minister coming up with their own legislative programme as a matter of routine
2. restrict the number of initiatives and re-organisations.
In fact make the job of minister and the job of Mp part time. You could then reduce the number of whitehall jobs and consultancies drastically.

Good points JessM. In probation we had many secretaries of state and the most memorable for me was Charles Clark, who was constantly berated by the prime minister, to the extent that Clark would metaphorically kick the cat every time he got it in the neck, so we always knew he'd been in trouble.

On one very memorable occasion, he summoned every probation middle manager in the country to Westminster and no-one was exempt if they were not already on pre-arranged leave. We all trooped off, having been warned beforehand by the CEOs that he was going to kick our butts because probation doesn't work. When we got there, after a strange day during which we were stranded in Westminster with nothing to eat (food ran out!), Clark appeared on stage and told us what a fine job we were doing. We were totally puzzled and trooped back home. What a costly, pointless exercise.

A couple of days later he resigned!

While I was a school governor, we had eleven secretaries of state for education in about 21 years, from Baker to Balls and encompassing so many so-called 'reforms' that the teaching staff were practically flattened by all the paper coming into their offices. In that time I also had a spell as Chair of the Education Committee of a Met Borough which was quite a thorny position. Going to conferences was interesting because there was so much informed opposition to change for the sake of change. Both politicians and officers were able to offer constructive criticism but sadly this was usually ignored!

Here we go again! Computer programming for GCSE as for A level will only be as good as those who teach it. I wonder what Mr G's computer skills are like???

I think pretty much any subject is only as well taught as the people who teach it!
I am not sure about teachers buying into reforms before they are implemented though - I don't think we would ever have got ICT off the ground that way. I remember people saying I will never, ever need to use the internet....

And for his next trick.... unannounced OFSTED inspections, all of them, from September. A good thing in some ways (I have heard of schools borrowing a few outstanding teachers from other schools for the 2 days of the inspection!) but governors are supposed to drop everything and present themselves to be grilled at a few hours notice.
Ofsteds in future will include supply teachers as well apparently...