A government funded network of 400 “master” computer science teachers is being recruited to deliver an innovative computer science curriculum in schools across England.
The scheme, run by the British Computer Society, will see specialist teachers train educators in schools how to teach programming to children from as young as five, and will provide resources for use in class.
The new computer science curriculum replaces the current information and communications technology curriculum in September.
Opening the Bett learning technology show in London, Education Secretary Michael Gove said: “This new curriculum will be… much shorter and less prescriptive than the old ICT curriculum and it will allow schools to innovate and be much, much more ambitious.
“ICT used to focus purely and narrowly on computer literacy, teaching pupils over and over again how to word-process, how to work a spreadsheet, how to use programs which are already – were already, I should say – creaking into obsolescence.
“Now our new curriculum teaches children computer science, information technology and digital literacy. It will teach them how to code, how to create their own programs, not just how to work the computer but how a computer works, how to make it work for you.”
Pupils from as young as five will learn to code and programme, he said, and from age 11, children would be taught at least two programming languages.
“These are precisely the sorts of skills which jobs of the future, and for that matter the jobs of the present, demand and from now on these changes will ensure that every child gets a solid grounding in these essential skills,” he said.
Computer science GCSEs will now count as a science in the English Baccalaureate for secondary school league tables, alongside physics, chemistry, biology and pupils taking double science.