1. Good practices about ICT based
teacher training service in the UK
Able 3rd Meeting
Evora, March 2012

2. History of ITC in Schools
• In 1981 – the BBC worked with
Acorn Computer to create a
micro processor that could be
programmed in BASIC
• It was placed in schools and
formed the corner stone of the
“BBC Computer Literacy Project”
• Simple games and programs
were entered by hand in an
effort to tech core programming
elements

3. History of ITC in Schools
• As computing moved on, the focus moved to using
applications developed by other people and not creating our
own.
• This included
– Desk Top Publishing
– Word Processing
– Relational Databases
– Using Spreadsheets
– Very simple coding
• Much of this was done using Microsoft product on a
Windows environment

4. Current ICT in Schools
“Since the Education Reform Act of 1988,
information and communication
technology has been compulsory for all
pupils from 5 to 16 in maintained schools.
…. The use of ICT is considered as both a
specialist subject and across the wider
school curriculum.”

5. Current ICT in Schools
• The current ICT GCSE (ages 15-16) isn't compulsory and
covers the following topics:
– ICT systems
– Hardware
– Software
– Networks and communications
– Data, information and databases
– Measurement and control
– Modelling and simulation
– The legal framework
– Risks and implications of ICT

6. Current ICT in Schools
• Ofsted had said in their reports
that overall the quality of ICT in
Schools was good – across all
the levels of teaching
• Initiatives from supermarkets
and government have kept the
provision of computers in
schools in the public eye
• There‟s a strong network of
computer use clubs – along
with computers and broadband
availablity across the country

7. STEM Subjects
• In recent years there has also been a lot of interest in STEM
Subjects – and how they are taught in schools:
– Science
– Technology
– Engineering
– Maths
“The government‟s STEM programme aims to
increase young people‟s STEM skills in order to
provide employers with the skills needed for a
21st century workforce and ensure the UK‟s place
as a leader of science-based research and
development.”

8. The Future ICT in Schools
However the topic of ICT in schools has been
brought to the fore front in recent months
A Recent report by The Joint Council for Qualifications:
“Numbers of students studying computing are
plummeting across the UK, with a fall of 33% in
just three years in ICT GCSE students, a fall of
33% in six years in A level ICT and 57% in eight
years in A level Computing students in England
and similar declines found elsewhere in the UK”

9. The Future ICT in Schools
• In February 2011 a report commissioned by
Ian Livingstone, Alex Hope made the case
that the UK had lost it‟s cutting edge – high
tech knowledge
• A report called „NextGen Skills‟ – published
by UKIE was a call to arms to change the way
computing is taught in schools
• Both the Report and the campaign have been
picked up by companies like Sony, Facebook
and Google – and ultimately by the current
government.

10. The Future ICT in Schools
“It‟s time for a restart to
recapture that thirst for
computing which started
in the 1980s and lead to
the UK being a market
leader in computing,
before the education
system lost its way with
office-based ICT. ”
Michael Gove Secretary of The Raspberry Pi – a $25 dollar microprocessor
State for Education, January
2012

11. The Future ICT in Schools
Both the NextGen Skills Campaign, and another
report by the Royal Society stress one issue - The
abilities of teachers in the field of computing:
“…there is a shortage of teachers who are able to
teach beyond basic digital literacy”
There are steps to retrain teachers in Computing,
not just in ICT.
These changes will, in part, be in place by the
new academic year – September 2012.