Coding our way to a brighter future

Coding is a new, but basic literacy skill. Much like reading was in the early nineteenth century.

This weekend, The Sunday Times Good University Guide is due to be published, revealing that the graduates earning the most out of university are Computer Science graduates. While this finding is perhaps unsurprising, what I found very remarkable is the fact that the median starting salary for these graduates is £50k per year.

These large starting salaries confirm a scarcity of well-trained developers in the tech industry. The skills shortage is so significant that a day rate of £1,000 for a very average programmer is not unusual.

I have always told my own children that if they want to be a desirable hire in the future, they should be able to program a computer. At a minimum, they should have a good understanding of code so that they can work with developers.

The UK government recognised the value of a high quality computing education by making Computer science part of the National Curriculum four years ago; however, there is still a shortage of teachers able to teach this curriculum and too small a minority of students taking Computing at GCSE level.

In the early nineteenth century, only a minority of the UK population could read. It was unsure as to why a skill like reading should be taught to everyone. We believe that, like reading, coding is a form of basic literacy. When practiced more widely across the population, there is the potential for great economic progress.

Our experience shows that children are more motivated to code when they can really engage with their work creatively. Here are some robotic creatures our students made at camp this summer.

As September rolls on and a new school year unfolds, I thought I would share my three favourite computing myths to get us ready for a new year of coding instruction:

1. Myth: you can learn to code in a day. You can learn about coding in a day, but coding is a way of thinking. It is a way of instructing computers to perform specific tasks and hence, takes quite a bit of practice to achieve proficiency.
2. Myth: coding is boring. Over the past five years we’ve been doing constant research into the ways we can motivate children to learn to code. When children are making the games and robots they want to make and having a real creative impact on the things they produce, they are much more engaged learners.
3. Myth: coding is antisocial. Coding is often about teamwork. We often get students to program in pairs. We also emphasise other life skills that we can learn through coding such as resilience and growth mindset.