Welcoming Michael Gove’s plans to overhaul the school ICT curriculum, president of the Girls’ Schools Association (‘GSA’) has said that any decent ICT teacher is already way ahead of the ICT curriculum in terms of day to day classroom practice.
Computer science graduate Louise Robinson, who took over as president of the GSA this, said:
“It’s great that the education secretary has identified how inappropriate the curriculum is to contemporary life. However, up and down the country skilled teachers and their pupils are already way ahead of the basic curriculum. Good ICT teaching depends on inspirational, creative teachers as much as it does on a lively curriculum. A poor teacher will follow the curriculum doggedly. An excellent ICT teacher doesn’t confine her lessons to how to use Microsoft Office, whatever the curriculum says. It’s actually fairly commonplace these days for pupils to be designing their own websites and apps. As well as re-designing the curriculum, we need to make sure we have forward-thinking people to interpret and teach it.”
Lessons that engage and excite whilst giving transferrable skills
Mrs Robinson went on to say:
“When Mr Gove redesigns the curriculum, I would urge him to get the right balance between detail and broad skills set. We need to think about the transferrable skills inherent in learning ICT, not just the obvious practical applications. I know from personal experience how quickly programming languages become obsolete.
“It’s highly likely that, whatever programming language is taught in school, it will have had its day by the time a student is in employment, but in many ways that doesn’t matter – what matters is that our young people are engaged in lessons that excite them whilst giving them a variety of skills they can draw on in different environments, not just ICT. For example, at my own school, we spend more time developing websites with Year 7 and 8 girls than we do teaching spreadsheets. Instead of data logging, we do movie creation. But it takes enlightened teaching staff to do this.”
The GSA represents the UK’s independent girls’ schools. The Mount School’s Head of ICT, David Blamires, said “Each year, awareness of ICT improves as students integrate it into all aspects of their lives. Microsoft software skills are better than ever, and it is right that students should be stimulated with other exciting aspects of ICT. Students at The Mount start using MS Office as young as Years 5 and 6 – meaning by Year 7 they have many basic skills in word processing, spreadsheets, desk top publishing, databases and creating presentations. This provides us with the opportunity to then widen the curriculum to include video editing, web site design, picture manipulation, managing a blog, contributing to a wiki and creating animation.”
Principal Julie Lodrick said “Today's students will undergo careers that are largely redefined by technology. They will enter a workforce where almost 80% the roles that we now know will no longer exist. Here at The Mount School, we prepare our girls for those career paths by giving them a firm ICT foundation, making sure they have the necessary skills which allow them to adapt and be flexible in the workforce. Our girls have a belief in their own abilities and a willingness to take on anything."
For further information:
The Girls’ Schools Association (‘GSA’) represents the UK’s independent girls’ schools, including the Girls’ Day School Trust schools. GSA schools educate around 100,000 pupils at 179 schools. Approximately 9,500 of these are boarders. Almost 40% of the girls in UK independent education go to GSA schools.
http://www.gsa.uk.com/news/media-info/
The popular parental advice website, My Daughter, which gives advice on all aspects of raising and educating girls, is co-ordinated by the GSA.
www.MyDaughter.co.uk