VIEWS & OPINION
Boosting digital literacy in children from primary school onwards
Comment by MARK WARD, head of computer science, business and the vocational studies faculty at St John Fisher Catholic Voluntary Academy in Dewsbury
Teaching the value of apprenticeships
Comment by LOUISE DOYLE, further education consultant and director of quality assurance experts MESMA
The Digital Schoolhouse programme uses play-based learning to engage the next generation of pupils and teachers with the new computing curriculum. I work with local primary schools to deliver creative cross-curricular computing lessons, which help support the new computing programme of study (PoS) for the national curriculum in a way that leaves pupils and teachers feeling inspired and engaged. When computer science was made compulsory for primary schools, it left
quite a few teachers shell-shocked. It wasn’t part of their training, so understandably, their confidence in their abilities to teach the subject came into question. I’ve worked alongside ex-RE, maths, business and music teachers who found themselves teaching IT because they ‘knew a bit about computers’; but computer science is an altogether different beast that requires formal training so that teachers can understand computational thinking principals themselves, before trying to teach them. I knew it was an area of the school curriculum teachers would struggle with. We decided to get involved not only to help primary school teachers in our
area who might be struggling, but also to improve the computer science knowledge of the students coming to us at KS3, so that we, in turn, can better prepare them for GCSEs. To me, that’s what being involved in the Digital Schoolhouse is all about:
giving children the best possible chance to succeed! It was something I was doing with our Academy Trust schools on an ‘ad hoc’ basis anyway, but being involved with Digital Schoolhouse has enabled us to formalise the work and offer it to more schools.
Why get involved? The programme has given me access to world-class teaching resources (and teachers!), which in turn has inspired me to create my own workshop and INSET sessions; it’s made me a better teacher. It’s also helped us to develop working relationships with new and exciting
partners, for example, ‘Leeds Enterprise Partnership’ and ‘Ahead Partnership’. And we’ve been able to work Leeds digital businesses to ensure pupils have the digital literacy and computational thinking skills that businesses need, so what we are effectively preparing children for industry. On a personal level, I’m more excited and fired up by this project than I
have been by anything else I’ve been involved in. In my opinion, the computer science landscape will evolve at an even quicker pace than the IT landscape did, so this is an opportunity to make, and continue to make, a huge difference to the lives and aspirations of every child we teach. Longer term, pupils that then come to our school (or any secondary school)
will have a better starting point, meaning they should develop a deeper understanding of PoS elements earlier, thus better preparing them for GCSE study and beyond. I can’t wait until we’re in a position to track whether or not what Digital Schoolhouse aims to provide at KS1/2 has successfully filtered through at KS3/4, with more having a better understanding of the concepts involved; I for one suspect we’ll be more than pleasantly surprised with the outcomes.
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www.education-today.co.uk
I’m unclear as to where the evidence is being drawn from over whether or not apprenticeships will downgrade the teaching profession. The real issue is people’s cultural bias towards traditional routes into professions, alongside a view that apprenticeships are for those who are less academically able? I would argue that it is. At a basic level, an apprenticeship is
simply a combination of paid work and off-the-job study, which can deliver the skills employers actually want from their workforces together with professionally recognised qualifications. If utilising apprenticeships allows people to find a route into a career that isn’t otherwise available to them, why shouldn’t we look to create these opportunities while applying the same rigour to quality education as we would with a more traditional route? If it helps to develop and retain the high levels of skill the
country requires to remain competitive and move forward, particularly in regions such as my own in the North East where there is plenty of potential waiting to be unleashed, this is something I can support. If it helps small businesses to up-skill their existing workforce, by maintaining their employment while allowing time for study towards higher level qualifications, this surely ha to be a positive outcome? I’m heartened by both the conversations and narrative that my
colleagues and I are having with universities at the moment about degree level apprenticeships. It’s heartening to say with some confidence that in eight years of working with universities, I haven’t had as many frank and earnest discussions about the delivery of apprenticeships, as I have in the last six months. While we often talk of the potentially negative, unintended
consequences of the reforms and the levy in particular, I optimistically see this increased engagement of universities as a positive. I’ll go as far as to say I believe that the engagement of
universities will be the single biggest factor in helping to shifting some of the highbrow perceptions of apprenticeships as being somehow a lesser alternative to traditional classroom-based further and higher education learning. We owe our young people already in successful careers, as a result of being brave enough to follow an alternative route into a profession, that respect surely? These views are echoed by Emily Dunn, founder and director of
Gateshead-based Keyfort Group, which provides specialist support to individuals with brain injuries in the community. She says that apprenticeships have played a big part in the
success not just of her company but also workforce. “We equally value not just workplace experience, but
qualifications gained ‘on the job’ via apprenticeships. Close to half of our management team has no degree qualification and has been developed internally, with the use of apprenticeships. “I feel strongly that in today’s business world, apprenticeships
mixed with learning invaluable work skills, are an excellent combination and make for a successful profession, regardless of what that profession may be.”
April 2017
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