Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps his Department is taking to improve digital skills in the national curriculum.

The new national curriculum for computing was first taught from September 2014. The new curriculum, which covers Key Stage 1-4, is compulsory in maintained schools and can be used as a benchmark by academies and free schools. It has been designed to ensure that pupils acquire the knowledge they need to become active creators of digital technology, not just passive consumers of it. It focuses on the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including computer programming, abstraction, logic, and algorithms. It also includes digital literacy, e-safety and the application of information technology.

As announced in the 2017 Autumn Budget, the Government will be investing £84 million in a comprehensive programme to improve the teaching of the new computing curriculum in schools. This will include creating a new National Centre for Computing Education, training up to 8,000 existing computer science teachers to teach the GCSE, an A level support programme, and a pilot programme to explore approaches to improve the gender balance in computing.

This is in addition to the £5.8 million we have already invested since 2012 in the Network of Teaching Excellence in Computer Science. The programme built a national network of over 350 ‘Master Teachers’ that schools could commission to provide bespoke training for their teachers.