Let's be honest. I don't like Gove. I never have done in all the time he has been secretary of state for education. He doesn't listen to advice from those who know what they are talking about, and seems intent on pushing through his own version of a flawed educational approach.
However, yesterday he gave me a whole new reason to not like him. I don't like him because he stopped me from having a go at him when he gave the opening keynote at the BETT show in London.
This is the man who has previously refused to comment on the position of ICT in any future curriculum. This is the man who has bemoaned how it is taught in schools and cited personal examples of how woeful it is. So to say I was shocked by the contents of his speech would be an understatement. In a nutshell (to butcher a Monty Python classic);
ICT is no more! It has ceased to be! It's expired and gone to meet its maker! ... It's kicked the bucket, It's shuffled off its mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-SUBJECT!!
The ICT curriculum will alter beyond all recognition, the Programmes of Study will be withdrawn from September 2012, and it seems as though schools will be allowed to teach *WHAT* they want, *HOW* they want, using *WHATEVER* tech they want.
After some considerable thought, and alot of discussion through Twitter and several online forums, I'm not so sure that this is a good thing actually. Yes, it is nice that a government has admitted that the prescribed curriculum for ICT was not fit for purpose. It's nice to hear an MP admitting that the current state of ICT leaves pupils at a disadvantage in the world of work, but to simply throw the whole thing out and say "get on with it yourself"? That's not such a good idea, is it? To make the claim that "pupils think 'ICT is boring' therefore ICT must go" is a very dangerous statement to make. It could be argued by some pupils that other areas of the curriculum are just as 'boring' as ICT has been declared to be. Would those subjects be removed too?
Maybe it isn't the subject itself that is 'boring', but more likely the way that it is being taught in places. Perhaps it is down to the non-ICT expert, or the teacher with no ICT enthusiasm who is being asked to teach it, that makes the lesson boring.
I conducted a quick straw poll of my [year 3 and 4] pupils this morning and asked them if they thought their ICT was boring. Not one of them said it was. Instead, their answers were 'it's fun', 'it's exciting', 'we get to make games', 'it's really good'.
It does come across that Gove has taken limited feedback of ICT lessons - maybe his personal experience, or maybe he's focussed on a particular Key Stage - and from that reached a generalised statement. Baby and bathwater spring to mind over this.
So, onto the fact that schools will be given the freedom to create their own, relevant ICT lessons. I can see some schools (hopefully Porchester included) where this won't be a problem. To be honest, we had already walked away from the NC, and the PoS within it were a joke. Written many years ago, the expectations for year6 pupils were being met by pupils in year3, and so we had had to adapt learning, create our own lessons, decide on our own focus, and set our own targets for children to achieve.
I can't see that we will need to make much of a change to how we teach ICT once September arrives, but what about the school where there isn't a keen member of staff who is willing to look into new technology? A school where there isn't a desire to implement their own scheme to cover important skills? What will they do? In the past, a school like that could have turned to their local authority, and called in a curriculum advisor to suggest ways to move forward and make progress.
This isn't going to be possible anymore though, because the government has reduced the role of the local authority so much that advisors are practically non existent now. Local authority run CPD courses are becoming less and less too, so there isn't the option to go on a course to find out how to develop an exciting ICT scheme relevant to the school. There is always the local, teacher led, CPD events though - the teachmeets - where good practice from schools is shared.
That's a great solution for those interested in ICT, new approaches and ideas, but the reluctant ICT coordinator? The coordinator who has been given the role because no one else wanted it? Are they going to want to attend a teachmeet, in their own time, surrounded by (as they may see it) 'experts'? No, those ICT coordinators will simply keep quiet, attend no training, get no advice, and develop nothing.
So how can THOSE coodinators and THOSE schools be helped? The answer is sadly simple. They'll turn to a scheme. A commercial scheme. I expect to see a whole plethora of rushed schemes being released over the next few months trying to tempt schools into buying into them. A scheme where the lesson content could be outdated before they've even been taught - a scheme that will simply replace the NC PoS with it's own static PoS. And, just like the NC, those static PoS will be outdated very, very quickly.
So, what is the solution? Obviously not commercial schemes that will outdate quickly, and not the current NC with it's outdate PoS. What is needed is a NC that offers ideas maybe, and guidance. A NC based online that suggests focuses on core questions such as 'Finding things out', or 'Making things happen', or 'Communication', etc, and could give examples of good practice from around the country. Good practice that - because the scheme is online - could be updated as and when needed to keep the site relevant to pupils needs. Those core areas wouldn't need PoS - they would be out of date before the scheme was even published! They need to be left open ended, for schools to place their own PoS into. Each school has a different priority, a different need, depending on their pupils ICT awareness and experience, and that need / priority will change year on year.
Schools that are already redesigning their ICT coverage will be fine with this 'freedom' from the government. Schools that already modify their ICT coverage to enable their pupils learn will continue to do just that. Schools that innovate in the use of technology will continue to do so.
Schools that look at new technology and implement it into their lessons will continue to do so. It's the schools where this doesn't happen where the problems will lie, and it's those schools where ICT will still remain 'boring' and 'not fit for purpose'. These schools have the worrying potential for ICT to be pushed to the side, quietly dropped from their long term plans and forgotten about. This would be a national tradegy.
Gove spoke about the need for pupils to be given the skills for todays world, but his announcement has actually offered the opportunity for ICT-reluctant schools to do the exact opposite, and leave their pupils without those skills the government is now saying are crucial. There was a potential to make groundbreaking changes to ICT throughout the education system in yesterdays speech, but instead I simply see the system lurching from one crisis to another.
Gove stood there and celebrated the potential he was offering for ICT. Unfortunately, I simply saw him washing his hands of the problem that government ineffectiveness (past and present) has caused, and passing it onto schools to deal with.
Nice. Not.
