Curriculum for Excellence - Scratch Programming

This week I attended a CPD course on Scratch Programming which is a fun way to introduce pupils to programming - a topic many students dread!

The excellent course was run by Frank Frame, the Advisor for Computing, and it was very hands on. We got to create some programs from scratch (no pun intended) as well as following the excellent resources.

Scratch is obviously going to fit in well with the aims of Curriculum for Excellence. An interesting piece of news was that apparently the uptake for Computing courses in Higher and Further Education is not as high as it once was, and there are many concerns about this. Scratch is one such reaction to this, by trying to remove the 'nerdy' or 'geeky' image of Computing and trying to make it more interesting to pupils.

I have found this pretty interesting since Business subject degrees (in all their many forms such as Economics, Marketing, Accounting, Management, Human Resources, Operations, Logistics etc) are among the highest uptake in Higher and Further Education Institutions. Yet the experiences of pupils in schools differ from school to school. If Business is so popular at University and College then surely with our new Curriculum for Excellence there should be MORE Business courses available for pupils from 3-18 rather than less? I am sure this was at the forefront of the inclusion of Business outcomes and experiences in the Social Subjects document.

Business subjects offer students the chance to learn hard and soft skills which are vital in the workplace. Indeed, Business subjects are uniquely positioned to help pupils gain insight into industry which is after all where we hope our young people will eventually end up and contributing to society as a whole!