Curriculum Workshop WEDNESDAY 17 TH SEPTEMBER (AND CONTINUED ON MONDAY 22 ND SEPTEMBER)

Starter – 5 mins What is a curriculum? Discuss in pairs/threes Answer in one (short) sentence

Curriculum Workshop – Learning objectives  You should become familiar with the form and content of the current National Curriculum for Computing at KS3 and KS4  You should start to identify key themes in the NC and how they can be developed as a series of lessons  You should begin to understand how schemes of work can be developed from curricular, in preparation for your school experience (Monday)

Menu for today TimeActivity 09:30Introduction to curriculum/the National curriculum/some history 10:15A pictorial view of the NC/Activity 1 10:45Break 11:15Finish Activity 1 11:30Interpreting the curriculum /Activity 2 12:30Lunch 1:00Progression in the curriculum/ Activity 3 2:15Break 2:45Continue Activity 3 3:30KS4 & GCSE Introduction to schools’ audit 4:00Finish

History of the National Curriculum  1988 The National Curriculum is introduced in all state schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, prescribing what children should be taught to ensure each pupil is given the same standard of education. Along with the new curriculum, GCSE exams for 16 year olds are taught for the first time. Key Stages defined for the first time.  1990 Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) are brought in at state schools for all seven year olds.  1994 An A* grade is invented at GCSE to help distinguish between the top candidates. SATS are also introduced for 11 year olds.  1996 The Education Act 1996 requires all maintained schools to offer courses in religious education, but parents can opt their children out of the subject. Secondary schools must also offer a sex education programme.  1997 A third SAT exam is created for all 14 year olds in the country. More education laws also ensure all older pupils are given courses in careers education. (Continued)

History of the National Curriculum (contd)  2000 A major overhaul of A-levels sees each course broken down into six modules, three of which are sat a year earlier at the new AS level.  2002 New laws force all schools to offer pupils at least one course in each grouping of subjects at GCSE: the arts, design and technology, the humanities, and modern foreign languages.  2007 Labour is criticised for telling schools to strip back the traditional curriculum, removing Churchill and Hitler from the syllabus in favour of courses in debt management, the environment and healthy eating.  2008 A level exam marking criteria are adapted to include a new A* grade similar to that at GCSE.  2009 Unpopular SATs for 14 year olds are scrapped, along with the science exam for 11 year olds  2011 The coalition announces an overhaul of the curriculum, with more focus to be placed on British history and great works of literature.  2014 The new National Curriculum is implemented in England.

Eric Schmidt (Google) tells us we should be educating our children in CS! Curriculum Change in England … the Milestones Pre-service teacher training in Computer Science starts Computing at School is formed and campaigns for Computing in school Computing in new National Curriculum for England (5-16) Shut Down or Restart Report by Royal Society Draft new curriculum for Computing

United Kingdom Scotland N.I. England Wales Already had Computer Studies in the curriculum at secondary school New curriculum in Computing in September 2014 New qualifications in Computer Science CCEA awarding body has not yet offered GCSE Computer Science

Shut Down or Restart Report (Jan 2012)

Shut Down or Restart?The case for Computing in Schools (Jan 2012) 11 Recommendations included… 1.The term “ICT” to be reviewed 2.Increase recruitment of specialist teachers 3.Increase CPD opportunities in CS and ICT 4.Allow school networks to run CS software 5.Make a range of resources available to schools for teaching Computer Science 6.Reform the National Curriculum for ICT 7.Increase range of qualifications at KS4 in Computer Science …. …

Recommendations 1 and 6 (subject) ICT in England has been replaced with Computing and consists of three elements: Computer Science Digital Literacy Information Technology Computing will be taught in schools from age

Recommendations 2 and 3 (training)  New pre-service training for Computer Science training  Initiatives for in-service training for teachers who will now be teaching Computing (including accreditation)

Recommendation 7 (qualifications)  5 awarding bodies now offering a GCSE (qualification age 14-16) in Computer Science  Uptake from just one body increased from 1766 (2012) to 4253 (2013) and 14,000 in 2014 (estimate).  A-Level (qualification age 16-18) has been reviewed and new version ready for September 2015

What about Computing in the National Curriculum? What do you already know …? 1. What was in the old ICT curriculum (for example at KS3)? 2. What is in the new Computing curriculum (for example at KS3)? (without googling …) Discuss in pairs and write down key points on post-its.

New national curriculum for Computing

Content of curriculum: KS1 (5-7)

Content of curriculum: KS2 (7-11)

Content of curriculum: KS3 (11-14)

Content of curriculum (KS4) All pupils must have the opportunity to study aspects of information technology and computer science at sufficient depth to allow them to progress to higher levels of study or to a professional career. All pupils should be taught to:  develop their capability, creativity and knowledge in computer science, digital media and information technology  develop and apply their analytic, problem-solving, design, and computational thinking skills  understand how changes in technology affect safety, including new ways to protect their online privacy and identity, and how to report a range of concerns

Activity 1 (45 minutes inc feedback) 1. Use a copy of the secondary Computing National Curriculum. In groups of 4 you are going to develop a pictorial view of the curriculum by identifying your ideas about:  Themes/Strands – can you group topics in the NC to see key themes?  Dependencies – what do you need to know (eg at KS2) before you start?  Sequence – do you have any ideas regarding the order in which you would teach the various topics? 2. Draw on flip chart paper – discuss and think first about how to represent all the content of the NC (we will take photos for the wiki). 3. You can use scissors and blu tack to cut up the NC and position on your diagram if that helps

Break

A spiral curriculum Learning is spread out over time rather than being concentrated in shorter periods. In a spiral curriculum, material is revisited repeatedly over months and across year groups.

A hidden curriculum What also is taught – teaching unintended lessons Examples?

Activity – 45 minutes (different groups) Take this statement in the NC “understand simple Boolean logic [for example, AND, OR and NOT] and some of its uses in circuits and programming; understand how numbers can be represented in binary, and be able to carry out simple operations on binary numbers [for example, binary addition, and conversion between binary and decimal]” 1. Pick one aspect of this area of the NC 2. Suggest at least one activity you might use in lessons on this topic 3. Write down: 1. What aspect you would cover 2. What activities you would suggest to teach this 3. How you would know if the students had understood the topic

Lunch

Assessment in the curriculum  Previously there were level statements which guided assessment and progression  These no longer exist although schools/organisations are trying to fill the gap  Schools have “autonomy” to decide how to assess (prior to GCSE)

Progression in the curriculum  The “progression pathways” is one approach to providing an idea of sequence and structure for teachers in the new curriculum  Uses colours and not numbers Short task: Looking at the progression pathways, can you map these to key stages?

Activity (in different groups)  Pick a strand in the secondary NC from your original picture  Suggest how you might develop students’ learning of this strand in years 7, 8 and 9 through revisiting and developing understanding  Produce a timeline of concepts in your strand to introduce in order  Next to these suggest some approaches to teaching the concepts you have identified

Key Stage 4  Computing is compulsory to age 16  Schools should offer GCSE Computer Science and GCSE ICT  The core content is brief but should be covered  Students choose their GCSEs – they do not have to continue all of their subjects  What will your schools do about the core – for those who don’t choose as an option?

Activity – 20 minutes – in pairs (on PCs)  How many GCSEs are there in Computer Science?  How many GCSEs are there in ICT?  What are the main differences?

Task (for later)  When you are at your School Experience 1:  Find out what is taught in your school at GCSE  What happens to students who don’t choose GCSE  How much Computing is being taught at KS3,KS4 and KS5  Complete this form for your school – we will revisit this later and compare local provision

Follow-up reading Read this paper: Brown, N., Sentance, S., Crick, T. and Humphreys, S. (2014). Restart: The Resurgence of Computer Science in UK Schools. Trans. Comput. Educ. 14, 2, Article 9 (June 2014) Available on Moodle

Curriculum Workshop – revisiting Learning objectives  You should become familiar with the form and content of the current National Curriculum for Computing at KS3 and KS4  You should start to identify key themes in the NC and how they can be developed as a series of lessons  You should begin to understand how schemes of work can be developed from curricular, in preparation for your school experience (Monday)

End of Session