Well to be fair to the schools, they are held to the national curriculum.  ICT was removed from the curriculum some years ago and Computing was added instead.  The same for Religious Education mentioned earlier, this is mandated by the curriculum.


My little one is in primary and this year they have added some computing to the ICT they were teaching.  Although, they often seem to have problems with unreliable hardware when attempting to teach things.  I believe that the use of ICT is an everyday skill that all children really need to be able to do.  OK, not every child will end up in a job where they need to give presentations (don't get me started on the overuse of visual effects in school presentations) but the ability to find information, perform research and communicate is probably essential.  The old ICT GCSE seemed to focus on making databases and websites - which probably are not all that useful.


Computing is actually mandated from KS1 all the way up.  Given how the world is changing, I'd suggest that there is some value in teaching some aspects of computing just to familiarise with the concepts.  "Scratch", which seems to be the most common learning language, is intended for teaching from the age of 8 upwards.  Yes, I don't see the need to teach kids C++ at 8 years!


Although, getting back to topic.  Do they really need 11+ GCSE's?  No not really, but it seems to be some sort of an arms race.  My child got X A*, Oh, mine got X+1.  When you look at A Level entry requirements, in most cases it only calls for 2-4 specific GCSE's.


I'd agree with Andy that perhaps it's useful to may try some different things in your GCSE's if your school offers anything interesting (or just to pick something a bit easier so you can spend time on the important stuff).  It depends on the school, some have very limited options due to lack of funding.

Well to be fair to the schools, they are held to the national curriculum.  ICT was removed from the curriculum some years ago and Computing was added instead.  The same for Religious Education mentioned earlier, this is mandated by the curriculum.


My little one is in primary and this year they have added some computing to the ICT they were teaching.  Although, they often seem to have problems with unreliable hardware when attempting to teach things.  I believe that the use of ICT is an everyday skill that all children really need to be able to do.  OK, not every child will end up in a job where they need to give presentations (don't get me started on the overuse of visual effects in school presentations) but the ability to find information, perform research and communicate is probably essential.  The old ICT GCSE seemed to focus on making databases and websites - which probably are not all that useful.


Computing is actually mandated from KS1 all the way up.  Given how the world is changing, I'd suggest that there is some value in teaching some aspects of computing just to familiarise with the concepts.  "Scratch", which seems to be the most common learning language, is intended for teaching from the age of 8 upwards.  Yes, I don't see the need to teach kids C++ at 8 years!


Although, getting back to topic.  Do they really need 11+ GCSE's?  No not really, but it seems to be some sort of an arms race.  My child got X A*, Oh, mine got X+1.  When you look at A Level entry requirements, in most cases it only calls for 2-4 specific GCSE's.


I'd agree with Andy that perhaps it's useful to may try some different things in your GCSE's if your school offers anything interesting (or just to pick something a bit easier so you can spend time on the important stuff).  It depends on the school, some have very limited options due to lack of funding.