There are increased emphasis on developing the knowledge and understanding necessary to become a discriminating and capable user of ICT and e-safety is now explicitly included.

In any ICT curriculum, you will find reference to database, spreadsheets, presentation-based work (such as word processing, and desktop publishing) and multimedia. The National Curriculum, though, does not explicitly mention these applications, instead addressing the capability of the user in selecting and using relevant tools appropriately and efficiently.

From this, we should be able to see the discrete teaching of ICT in schools is much more that a skills-based training exercise. Teachers teach there pupils to use ICT effectively in every day situations. The National Curriculum review has refined the structure of the curriculum and made it possible to deliver learning in more flexible ways. Schools therefore will explore this flexibility, and the expectation is that subject area will work more closely together to deliver a more integrated curriculum.

Beyond the Curriculum The curriculum for ICT is fairly busy. Designing a curriculum which includes a fundamental ICT skill- set, opportunities to attain ICT capability and cross- curricular links is challenging. For instance, many pupils struggle to use the keyboard efficiently: they do not understand how to use or set tabs; keyboard shortcuts are a mystery.

When entering Grade 7, pupils may never have used a network; they may not understand the relevance of file extensions. Now the challenge of an ICT teacher is to find time to incorporate these fundamentals into the curriculum, through either integration into other topic areas. Many students will be familiar with social networking, gaming, storing photographs, and so on. These topics tend to be not traditionally taught to students. Some teachers are now using it for educational purposes.

Consider two scenarios, both relating to grade 7 students: Scenario 1: some students are using a computer to take part in an interactive math activity in which they have to type in the correct answer to a multiplication question. If their answer is correct they move on to the next problem; if its incorrect they are given another go. Scenario 2: Some students are trying to find out, using a spreadsheet, how to construct formulas and to create a graph to demonstrate their solutions.

Both are relevant to the mathematics curriculum, but only the second scene is relevant to the ICT National Curriculum. The first scene they only have to know is how to use the keyboard to type their answers; in the second scene the students will know how to use spreadsheets to solve a real problem, including entering formulas and creating a graph. It is one thing that the curriculum changes, ICT changes the curriculum.