Axing the ICT GCSE was 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater', says CAS chair Simon Peyton Jones

ICT course 'needed a good hard look' but the requirements of many students are now not being served

The way that computing is taught in schools is undergoing a radical change, and not before time, says Prof Simon Peyton Jones, technologist, researcher at Microsoft and chair of the Computing at School group (CAS).

Instead of teaching computing as a technology subject, or - as was frequently the case - simply a tool to equip students for life in an office, it should taught more like a natural science: a set of fundamental principles that govern the way the world works.

"My interest in education started when I saw the dire education my children were getting 10 years ago," explained Peyton Jones. "So I helped set up CAS which turned out to be the epicentre of a complete revolution in the way that we are teaching children in England about computing.

"The previous English national curriculum was all about using Microsoft Office, using the technology of computers to make people more productive, which is a really important but something that increasingly students know already. What they weren't learning was anything about how computers work."

This seems to echo a statement by Sir Clive Sinclair with regard to coding.

"We've gone backwards," Sir Clive said recently. "In the 1980s, Britain was the world leader in coding for children, and the government should have put computing on the school syllabus then, not wait decades to do it."

A return to teaching coding is only part of the story, says Peyton Jones. Fundamentally it is about inculcating an understanding of how computational thinking and algorithms govern the world, both natural (think of cell division and the behaviour of flocking birds) and digital. In his view, the reason for teaching coding was never made clear, even in that so-called golden era.

"We had these new computer-y things with a flashing cursor so we thought, we'd better teach Basic," he said.

"There wasn't an intellectual understanding of why we were doing it and I think that's why we lost it. What we doing now is reframing the question in a larger canvas to say computer science is fundamental to the world that surrounds us in the same way that natural science is."

In 2014 the English National Curriculum was changed to "ensure that all pupils can understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science". These changes apply from primary to GCSE level education. That's all very positive, but are there sufficient teachers with the right experience to do it right?

"Teachers are a bit anxious about the rate of change because we're asking them to do something they haven't done before, but the children find it incredibly engaging, especially the coding," Peyton Jones says. "They really get the hang of it and enjoy it a lot - if it's well taught of course."

However, he regrets the 2015 decision to axe the ICT GCSE, which he sees as 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater'.

"We now have a GCSE in Computer Science which we fought hard to get and that's brilliant, [but some students] are more interested in the more applied aspects. Now, the particular GCSE in ICT did need a good hard look, it was not great as it stood, but by throwing it out completely we're now not serving the needs of quite a large slice of the population and I think teachers and indeed students regret that very much.

"I hope eventually that will change back again, that we'll get a GCSE in say Information Technology as a stablemate to Computer Science. In natural science we have a GCSE in Chemistry and a GCSE in Physics and they don't compete with each other, they are regarded as complimentary. I'd like to see that in computing too."

He says that companies, along with universities and research institutes all have a role to play in training and supporting teachers in their new role. The government has not stepped forward to provide such support, he notes.

"The bad reason is that there is no money, but the good reason is that when the government does it, it freezes out diversity."

One of the criticisms levelled at the ICT GCSE, not least by head of tech industry group CREST Ian Glover who also mourns its loss, was that it was too Microsoft focused. So is there a danger of corporations like Microsoft effectively being able to corner the state education market once again?

"We need to keep an eye on it of course but my experience is that the company is doing a really good job of not exerting its corporate muscle to promote its products, rather to just support the discipline," says Peyton Jones. "I'm very relaxed about companies being involved.

"Microsoft, Google, ARM ... they've been most impressively disinterested in their support of this. They do not push their own products. They see this is something which ought to happen for our nation and if we are seen to be promoting our own products we will in effect become ineffective in that space.

"It's rather nice to find an area where Microsoft who are usually such fierce competitors with Google can stand shoulder to shoulder with them and approach the government as one. They have been doing that, once in the same project, and that's really good."