Business card thunderclap – and you

Hello, this is a slightly different post from me, a letter really, dear you…

I have a lot of business cards from people I have met over the last few years, I tend to be given them during or after a conversation and I keep them as I know that person had something in common with me and we spoke long enough to exchange cards.

I am a dullard and only bang on about three things:

• hack/modding days (Rewired State and Young Rewired State)
• coding kids (Year 8 is too late)
• women in technology (need more)

Therefore, I know that all the cards I have here relate to one or all of those subjects. I have exactly one foot of people who love the same things I love.

Being 41, I think – I do lose track: July 1971, I have pretty much decided what I want to do when I am a grown up. These are:

• be a good Mum
• keep the business alive for life so that I can still be doing it when I ‘retire’ and work with *lots* of people and friends
• relentlessly campaign to bring coding back
• actively grow a worldwide community of coding kids who can do with it what they will
• work tirelessly to significantly enhance the number of girls in computing and design by whatever means I have at my disposal
• open data, open borders, open business
• help to code a better world

Those seven things are my bucket list.

Now I am starting on this foot high pile of business cards. I am creating a spreadsheet, that only I have access to (this is not a commercial thing) of people I have met who are as passionate as me about these things.

This community of people, bound by the three passions I bore on about, will then be in one place and I will endeavour to explore how I can use this list of incredible people and their energy, to create a worldwide thunderclap of informed action over the next few years.

If you have never handed me your business card, but want to be a part of this thunderclap, email me emma@rewiredstate.org with your name, job, email address, passion and I will add you to the list.

This is not a commercial enterprise, it will take some time as it will be my spare time, but it seems a pretty good way to build on the energy in this space right now.

I am not missing the irony of the fact that last year I started the Silent Club to do exactly the opposite of this. But I am not suggesting that the Thunderclap be a physical networking thing, but it will be active not passive, and community-based – I am not ruling out us having a massive and brilliant party one day.

A very great week for young programmers in the UK

Two important and wonderful things happened this week:

1. Google donated 15,000 Raspberry Pis to schools across the UK

2. Today it was announced that Computer Science will be included in the new English Baccalaureate (EBacc)

Much of this achievement is down to relentless campaigning and education by groups such as Computing at Schools, Next Gen Skills and a large number of dedicated individuals: too many to mention here. We should be proud of these things happening, but let’s not wipe our hands of this problem just yet.

We need to focus our attention on the junior school children, Year 8 is Too Late in my opinion and even with the impetus of the EBacc computer science course we need to introduce ‘computeracy’ in junior schools across the land: let the 7 year olds have fun, break stuff, play and enjoy exploring the potential of computers and the digital renaissance. Bring back the What if? questions, What would happen if I…?

I know that there is a while yet before the decision is taken as to which schools will get the donated RPis, but it would be really wonderful if they were only given to junior schools, bringing an excuse to the classroom to discover the potential and joy of computers, in the same way the BBC Micro gave all us oldies hours of code-y fun in the 80s. I suspect that this would see a far greater take-up of the EBacc as those children move into senior school.

All that aside, what a brilliant week for young people in the UK?

A version of this opinion piece is in the Education section of The Telegraph

No Willy No Woman’s Hour

As you can probably guess from the title of this blog post I am a bit cross and made a hashtag #NoWillyNoWH which is just ridiculous… but true

I love Radio 4, I have always loved radio 4, I also like Capital sometimes, but mainly R4 when I have no kids with me. Woman’s Hour has occasionally stuck in my craw as a title, but I think that – like the rest of the country – I adopt it with an indulgent smile, a nod to our ability to see humour in everything and satire is our bag, right? I love Woman’s Hour with the same bit of me that loves Boris being the Mayor of London.

I also thought long and hard about writing this blog post. It is not always helpful to be stabby and cross about things, but when my retired step-mother, who was a GP and fought the battle she had to fight for so many years as a female GP, was so totally gutted that this was *still* going on, and so cross she even surprised my father with her depth of feeling about this, I felt that I was not stupid to feel this cross.

Being a chick and doing what I do, I do get asked to go and talk on radio and telly, albeit badly as I have had no media training, just conviction and experience, so getting an email from Woman’s Hour was not completely weird, but it was EXCITING!

Now because of the caveat at the bottom of all BBC emails, I can’t share word for word what that email said, but I can tell you what my reaction was and what happened – I think. Well they can sue me if I got their email rules of secrecy wrong.

They asked me if they could talk to me the next day with a view to maybe going on to WH on Friday, tomorrow, to talk about the lack of women speakers at tech conferences and as a side issue girls and coding. Both of these things are passions of mine, and I run the Year 8 is too Late campaign and fight to get equality in attendees at Young Rewired State (last year’s der moment written here, with a reference to Woman’s Hour! #irony <- please read it, it is far more important than this rant). But I came back from that and by bringing Lily Cole onto the judging panel, upped the YRS girl attendees from 3% to 18% girls – still not awesome, but better.

I was also contacted by another lady geek type person who had been approached but they had replaced her with me, she and I had a digital thumb war, but basically all very happy about the fact that this was being discussed, even though really I should learn my own lesson from last year and NOT shine a big light on this!

Within half an hour they contacted me again to say that actually they wanted to have a man speaking on the programme, as they wanted to focus the programme on men standing up for women in tech and they would replace me with someone, whom they named, who – much though I love him and respect his work, is not known for campaigning or acting on either subject.

At this point I was just gutted, I had been so excited but I was gutted.

I suggested Aral Balkan, who is the accepted person who fights hard for this and writes about it, acts on it and it the male voice in this space.

It turns out they already had him booked, they wanted another man. “So…” I clarified, ” you want TWO men talking about this? Oh the irony”

Look, I have no problem, dear Woman’s Hour, with finding the right people for the discussion regardless of gender. I would have had no problem with you actually speaking to me and deciding that what I said was not appropriate, or that my lack of media training made me an unsuitable candidate. But to pass me over, simply because I do not have a willy, in the very thing I give up my spare time, and earn sod all in my organisation, actively working for, trying to solve and sharing and writing what I learn along the way on the very subject that actually cries out for a woman’s voice amongst the men who do indeed fight for us, is infuriating. Patronising. Misogynistic.

I know I will never be invited on Woman’s Hour now, and I am over that.

Tomorrow’s discussion is what it is. I am not sure that it is the right thing to do, shining a big light on this can have a detrimental effect, but there are ways to address and overcome it. I certainly do not have all of the answers, but I do have quite some decent experience – as do many other lady geeky and non-geeky people.

But it seems: No Willy, No Woman’s Hour #NoWillyNoWH

PS Dear YRS kids, do not let this happen in your generation

PPS I have nothing but respect for Aral Balkan and Dr Tom Crick, those two men who are speaking on WH tomorrow, Aral was always going to be there and so he should as this has long been a fight he has naturally, if uncomfortably, felt driven to fight for and write about. Dr TC is doing wonderful things and is an academic who also spends his spare time fighting for digital literacy – not known focus (unless I have missed something) on female speakers or girls and coding, more about just generally shifting the nation up a gear – a noble and respectful thing. My issue is just with Woman’s Hour and how they have interpreted this problem and actively chosen to address it

Update to this post now that the programme has aired

Firstly, both the boys were brilliant, of course. However, I saw absolutely no reason why it was so necessary to have two men debating the subject, as Tom was asked questions about girls in programming and Aral – rightly so – was asked about his campaign to get more female speakers into tech. So the above blog post remains true. I understand that the BBC’s response to a National paper was that this was always going to be about men standing up for women and they only ever wanted male speakers, which begs the question: why contact me, and *all* the other really fabulous and far more eminent than I, ladies.

To the points made in the comments about researchers using contact to get background for the show, this is often the case, but I just want to clarify this contact was made in email form to set up a discussion the following day with a view to me talking about it on the show today. The follow-up email stating they wanted two men to discuss it instead came 1/2 an hour later, not after they actually spoken to me.

Finally, and most importantly, Amy Mather was an absolute superstar. She was the young female programmer they had pre-recorded a session with, during which she spoke eloquently and brilliantly about what she does, why and the problems facing young girl geeks. I know Amy well through Young Rewired State and think she is great. The points she made are what we should be focusing on. However, her inclusion in the show does not take anything away from the fact that the live debate on this subject was actively selected based on gender and was intentionally all male.

I think this is quite enough on this subject, I am glad it has aired, I just think that one own goal could have been foreseen and avoided very easily.

No exit strategy intended, anyone else here for the long game?

As a social entrepreneur, someone who is leading an organisation that is about longevity/good/jobs not an exit strategy, I am learning fast as I build Rewired State, Young Rewired State and Rewired Reality.

It is hard work, this is year five and it is harder than years 1, 2 nd 3, they were great fun. Four was the portend of things to come and now we face a year of scaling down rather than up, consolidating and dealing with employment and HR over strategy and innovation. Not necessarily fun but just as important to secure the future of our dedication to open data, open government, open organisations and young programmers. The future as we see it.

As we scale, so the community spirit that imbues young start-ups dwindles and it is difficult to retain the call-to-arms enthusiasm we all have when starting something new. Big lessons are learned and sometimes trust can be tested, especially when the bill for sustaining your battle cry begins to become about proper sums, ones that can’t be appeased by offers of free pizza and wifi, and more about salaries and data bills.

Money destroys those discussions, in communities, start-ups, social enterprises and even charities. Yet we all have to find a way to sustain our work, beyond begging for a slice of a CSR budget.

I am just at the beginning of year five, and will of course chart its course through this blog as ever, for those interested. For those who are in a similar position, I would like to share a little of the pain, and the ways we can continue the work we started, fund it, employ people, make it all sustainable, and still have these organisations in business when we retire – years hence.

Right now I am a bit lost, a bit frightened and do question that I am the right person to continue pushing for what I believe is sensible, right and good. At the same time I think it is OK to feel this frightened; to feel as if I had conquered it all and egotistically *the one* is usually a hiding to nothing, and we would be doomed.

But it is scary.

If there are any more of you out there, please do make yourselves known either privately or here. It would be good to find some others who are in it for the long haul and therefore about to enter the scary years, and take some forced time out to support each other.

Scary – but not giving in…

Myth-busting State schools vs Private schools

The post I wrote on Friday in response to a number of suicides in recent years by parents unable to keep up with school fees has struck a chord. I wrote it because I wanted parents of the future to have something to read that gave the detail of experience in both private and state schools – hopefully to allay their fears and prevent them feeling death was the only way out. As the blog post spread so I started getting common (mis-held) beliefs flung at me on Facebook and Twitter and so I put together a bit of a list, one that I think needs its own place – please do add to these in the comments:

No sports in state schools – not true

No clubs in state schools – not true and they are often free/low-cost

No exciting school trips in state school – not true, youngest is off skiing next week and eldest is off to Paris fashion week next year

State school children are rude – not true, indeed I find them often more polite than their privately educated peers

They don’t have a varied curriculum in state school – not true, but some of the options are optional and extra to the school hours

Single sex education is important – whilst true that boys and girls learn at different speeds and in different ways, I have found that my own single-sex schooling has left me hugely debilitated in understanding how my male colleagues communicate, learn and operate. In society communication and empathy, team working and collaboration are intrinsically more important than what you know over the life-span of your career. You can learn facts and skills, you cannot “learn” how people work – this is a life-skill picked up through co-education from 0-18

State school is only for the mediocre - not true, there are gifted and talented programmes UK-wide for state-educated kids and tailored learning for those who need help, for free (as documented here in Chris’s fabulous post). In fact tailored learning is better in state schools as private schools tend to focus on the high-achievers, I had to pay for extra tuition in private school for both my ‘average’ children, on top of the school fees

Private school education buys you better jobs - I believe that this is dying out, it is rare now for anyone over the age of 21 to be asked socially or in any context outside of CV discussions what type of school they went to. The Bullingdon Club embarrassment of the current government has meant this is risible rather than socially acceptable

Children moving from private school to state school will be bullied – I have not found this to be true, indeed the state school kids were far more accepting than the private school kids (and teachers) when I moved my children from state to private

Private school teachers are better – not true… indeed, as private schools are charities, (they are and this is a separate post in itself!), they have far more autonomy over who they hire. Teachers in private schools are not required to have teaching qualifications, (which could indeed be viewed as a good thing), but state school teachers are required to go through far more rigorous testing on their methods and standards. State school teachers are also often better supported through National programmes

Individual pupil care is better in private schools – please don’t believe this. In my experience in private schools there is an inescapable monetary value placed on each child. For example, parents of those children with younger siblings in the school or about to join the school receive greater attention than those with one child nearing the end of their time (and no sibling school fees in sight); high-net-worth parents also receive greater attention and privilege.

Smaller classes in private schools - whilst it is true that private schools do have smaller numbers of children per year, gone are the days of massive state school classes. What tends to happen now is smaller classes in lessons and more year groups per year. So on the whole there are more pupils in state schools, this does not affect the actual class sizes for lessons. For example, in my eldest’s school there are eight groups in year 10, within these groups there are 20-30 kids, their lessons are tailored to skills – so in each lesson within their year group, say Maths, there will be on average 15-20 kids in a classroom, with some lessons as small as seven kids. At my youngest’s school there are three year groups in Year 6, in her class though there are 16 kids.

This all looks like I am taking a massive swipe at private schools. I am not, I don’t think they should exist, I agree with Chris that we should be looking to emulate Finland’s model of education with a fully nationalised system – but I have nothing against the teachers, kids or heads currently living the publicly-educated life, but what I am keen to do is debunk the urban legends that damage the state school education reputation, and lead terrified, naive parents to take their own lives rather than send their children to state school.

Are the school fees worth it?

I have been meaning to write this post for a very long time, mainly because I get asked by so many friends with young children what my opinion is on state schools vs private schools. This is because as my finances have fluctuated and my moves around the country have demanded my children have spent time at both private and state schools in both junior and senior classes, and even a brief spell of being home-educated.

Tonight I am writing it because I read this article. This is the second suicide over school fees in the last year that I have heard of, the first was the mother of one of my daughter’s friends who threw herself under a train – these are not cries for help, these are definitive decisions to end life.

I am writing this post for those with young children looking ahead to their foray into education, rather than those freaking out about how they can continue to afford the fees and whether they should/could/can send their children to state school. (To the latter, I say do it, it is fine – really fine. Please don’t be so worried about how your children will cope, mine have coped with all manner of moves and are better children for it. You do need to take time over the transition and be interested and do your homework on all school availabilities. And if you can only get your child into the school you are least fond of immediately, well the education system splits neatly into chunks of 3-4 years for each important bit, so there will only be a limited period of time before you can make another choice. Also, whatever the school does not provide, you can – and should).

If you are here because you are feeling suicidal or desperate, please do think about seeking support from people like the Samaritans or a doctor – the words here will only calm fears about the future in state education (which really is fine).

The history, why I consider myself in a decent position to offer advice, skip this section if you don’t care and you just want the answer

I went to private school, and I lived in fear of being sent to state school – it was indeed a threat if I misbehaved. I hated school, I was an OK student and I can honestly say that those I met there have had no effect whatsoever on my employment since I left school – no old girl network here.

In my naivety, before I had children, I thought that my ideal scenario was to have my children educated in the state sector in junior school, then privately at senior level when they needed to knuckle down and pass exams – I was a bit concerned as I thought state schools would not have any sports (a myth) but that was OK.

Once I started breeding I worried more, and hell-bent on following my pre-motherhood commitment to my children and state school I did the terrible thing of hunting down the poshest one I could find and begged for them to accept my child. They did for nursery but not for reception, I put her in pretty certain that they would change their mind and let her into reception. They didn’t, so she had to move to a different school, new kids. It wasn’t posh but it was great, the Mums and kids were lovely, the teachers were fab, some a bit meh, but mainly good (same everywhere!). What was I playing at?

I then moved and had a second child and sent them both to the local, local school having learned my lesson. It was fine, they taught the children and both my children thrived. Then some worrying things happened, they stopped teaching maths for two terms – I am not sure why, and I received a letter from the school with photos of the parents who were banned from the playground. Worrying, I thought, and moved them both to another state school, a little further away. They were both supremely happy there and learned well, associated well with other children, loved their teachers and so on and so forth.

Then we moved again – out of London this time and mid-way through the academic year. I could get one child into the local state school but not the other. Bearing in mind I was working in London every day at that time, I couldn’t cope with this, so I found them both a place at the local Private school. A small thing with reasonably low fees – fees in junior school are affordable (if you work a bit extra or take the job you don’t like but has a higher income, or you forego holidays, or whatever). It was very nice, although I was not comfortable in the playground really, as people far more wealthy than me really belonged there and I was a working Mum so not at the gym or coffee mornings – but the children were very happy and the teachers were great. The state school they had been at previously was better, better headmaster, better care for the children – but the education was good and they learned Latin, Rah!

Then senior school loomed for my eldest, and my silly brain still fixated on the importance of private senior school and the headmaster recommended a school for us. We went to see it and fell in love with it. The grounds, the building, the stuff on offer. The tea and champagne. The marketing events the school put on for us prospective parents was impressive. I would do anything to send my child there. Anything! Sell my soul if I had to, starve – nothing mattered more than my daughter being able to experience this education. We signed up, she went.

From the day she stepped into that school all marketing efforts ended abruptly. There was silence. I had to really struggle to find out what she was doing during her lessons, how she was faring at school. Her pals argued over what flooring they had on their respective tennis courts. The japanese lessons turned out to be one a term. The smiling head mistress vanished. She was in some sort of system, one I did not understand and I felt like I had lost her – but I knew she was having the best education ever, so I had to put up with it.

She seemed happy enough and so I was devastated when I lost one of my jobs and I knew I would not be able to boost my income in the current climate in order to pay school fees. These school fees had dominated my life, every single minute of every single day I was worried about school fees – where the next ones were coming from. I spoke to the school who seemed sympathetic and asked me to go and see them just before the beginning of the following academic year where we would work out a good plan.

Two days before school was due to begin I attended the meeting. Gone was the glorious reception, the tea and biscuits, the attentive staff – instead I sat outside the bursar’s office in a cold, drafty area of the school I had never seen. When invited in the conversation was short: full fees by the first day of term (the following Monday) or she would not be allowed on the premises.

This was her second year of senior school, I had less than a week to get her into a school and to explain to her that she was not going back.

Fretting and actually shaking I drove to the nearest school and begged them. They have no control over applications, the council do that and so I began the process of getting her into a local school to me – easier when I was not trying to find a place for two, but impossible at the very end of the Summer holidays, days before terms were due to begin in schools across the country.

I had no choice but to keep her at home. My Mum is a teacher and she tutored her for a while, keeping her at her house, I did my best to ensure she was happy and healthy – she was absolutely delirious with happiness. Had really hated her private senior school but not said anything as I was so delighted with it, and as a result being freed was the best thing that could have happened to her.

Eventually she got a place in a school quite far away from us, but I took her there most days until a place came up more locally. Two terms later she was offered a place in another school much closer to us, we moved her and she is unspeakably happy. The school is absolutely brilliant. A couple of dodgy teachers but that is OK, I help her with those subject areas. Communication between me and them is open and perfect. She has great friends, is hugely comfortable and self-assured having been to SO many schools, with SO many people! And she is doing well. The best she can in subjects she loves, and that is good enough for me.

My youngest meanwhile stayed in the other junior private school, with affordable fees (still wincey but there was little reason to move her) until she started being bullied – badly. The school’s attitude was not awesome and I hated dropping her at school, feeling like I was delivering her into the hands of hell – and paying for the privilege. So I took her out and put her into the local school that has many children who will be going to her sister’s school (and where she is registered to go, fingers crossed she gets in!). Again, same thing, she transitioned beautifully, the state school welcomed her so fully, communication is constant and they even ran an assembly and awareness session for the children on bullying. She has been there for just over 1/2 a term now, this is her second and she moved half way through last term, and you would not know the difference. Except that she is smiling, bouncy, happy and relaxed. The homework has eased up and she adores her teachers and new friends.

Why did I do it? All those years… all that money – because I believed a myth.

Skip to here if you just want the answer

PS My eldest is also often asked by worried parents of young babies. She says this (ish, this is me summarising her words): Going to private junior school for a bit taught me how to work hard, we had so much homework, lessons and the day was crammed. But definitely not at senior school. For her? She would never send her children to private school, ever. The second one feels the same.

Myth busting:

No sports in state schools – not true

No clubs in state schools – not true and they are often free/low cost

No exciting school trips in state school – not true, youngest is off skiing next week and eldest is off to Paris fashion week next year

State school children are rude – not true, indeed I find them often more polite than their privately educated peers

They don’t have a varied curriculum in state school – not true, but some of the options are optional and extra to the school hours

For more myth-busting, see my recent post that expands on this list

Year 8 is too late (part 2)

A whole year and a half ago, in August 2011, I wrote a post called: Year 8 is too late, this post is an update to that one, because – worryingly – this is not recognised as an issue. To me it is blindingly obvious and I suspect it is to most people when you stop and think about it. Back in 2011 the reference was to educating girls in computing and less about the fact that programming was not being taught in schools – which has obviously become the topic du jour, thankfully.

So I would like to reiterate the problem and outline the solution:

• children are not being taught digital literacy in our schools
• knowing how to use software products and shiny kit is not the same as being digitally literate
• understanding how the web works is a fundamental right for every person living in the 21st century, how else can we know and understand how and what choices are made on our behalf (read Douglas Rushkoff Program or be Programmed on this matter)
• if in the UK we outsource the building of our ideas, because we have failed generations by forgetting to teach basic programming skills to keep up with technology, we become irrelevant muppets
• spending time and money on fabricating a tech base in London, on a roundabout, is a complete farce if we are simply shop fronts with the technical talent having to be outsourced/imported because we neglected to educate the people who are learning in the UK
• naturally, if we want to move towards equality in technology, we must ensure we afford the girls the opportunity to learn at an age when they are excited and searching for more stuff to learn – ie in junior school, or from birth
• children are being taught to fear the internet rather than understand it, with schools restricting more and more access, rather than enabling them to understand what digital citizenship means; leaving them abandoned at 18, naive, unprepared and scared of what might happen, perpetuating the myth by avoiding too much understanding and simply being consumers of code-driven technology
• the current solution is being authored by exam boards reinventing the ICT GCSE – this in itself is a problem because this is the hardest place to start, it is way too late, but everyone assumes the solution is on the way – it is not
• the DfE can’t do anything about this other than highlight the problem, the schools have autonomy over what they teach and how – maybe we should have a policy change, I am not sure, but schools have the onus on them to address and resolve this
• schools do not currently have access to the talent that can teach programming and there is no way to use traditional teaching methods – the industry moves too fast
• computational thinking is not taught as standard – this is ridiculous
• digital literacy is not seen as core. Digital literacy is as core learning as numeracy and literacy, “computeracy” is a terrible term but it MUST be understood to be as fundamental as maths and taught
• this discussion is so old and in spite of much being written and understood about why this is important, nothing is being done, properly STILL(!) this is a national disgrace, we should be ashamed of ourselves
• we have not even yet managed to incorporate digital learning in the classroom, so terrified are we, yet look at what is happening in South Korea simply enabling learning beyond the classroom is a start, certainly for learning how to code
• we are falling behind all other countries by doing nothing more than shaking our heads at the problem and perhaps attending a one-day course on coding
• even more worryingly, some of the solutions being mooted in schools involve ideation only, coming up with an idea for an app, then the creation of that app outsourced to India (getting them to do our kids’ homework) I think this is criminal and exacerbating a problem that is already terrible
• computer science, including programming, is a new and separate subject, it is not a version of ICT, nor some newfangled way to do business studies, it is a separate and new subject for schools and should be inducted as so
• our Universities do run computer science courses, that unsurprisingly do not require any ICT GCSE/A levels to qualify for the course… as a result of this, much of the programming section of the computer science degree is taken up by teaching young adults GCSE level computing – this is embarrassing and explains why few self-taught developers will bother going to universities, which means they miss out on the stuff they would really benefit from learning at University, plus the other immeasurable ’rounding off’ being in further education brings – this is not fair
• if your child is ten or older and they have not begun to understand how the internet works and how to program, or even just computational thinking and logic – it is going to be hard for them, and that is unfair
• there are jobs, thousands of jobs, unfilled, in this country alone – for programmers of all levels from technical leads to absolute beginners – and it is only going to get worse as more and more children leave school without 21st century basic working skills. At a time when we are broken and heading for triple dip recession, how can this not be seen as insanity? What the actual ****? Teach those kids those skills, get them into those empty jobs – kickstart the economy… no-brainer

Here is my fist stab at a solution to all of the above:

• teach “computeracy” as a part of the core curriculum from year 5. Here is some advice from Matthew Applegate on what to teach at what age:

Year 5 = 9-10 age Computational thinking, logic, cause and effect (try Scratch, Google app inventor or Lego Mindstorms all visual based programming) or even Game Maker.

Year 6 = 10-11 age Should definitely be coding (try Processing very visual very quick feedback and free see http://pixelh8.co.uk/category/programming-in-schools/ for code examples and http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/11/teaching-kids-programmers/ )

Year 7 = 11-12 age try XNA, iPhone & Android dev the program doesn’t have to be complex or world changing you just have to show them a way in. Also they love being able to use and create on up to date tech.

Year 8 = 12-13 age some of the best iPhone developers are 13 years old.

• stop thinking of it as a nice to have and understand that it is a human right to be digitally literate and therefore have some measure of control and choice in the 21st century
• encourage every child you know age 10 or under to become digital makers – find and use those online resources, for example Mozilla’s web maker – designed for everyone, let it be natural
• fight hard, ask your school, don’t think it is being dealt with – it is not
• learn how to teach basic programming and computational thinking and get down to your local junior school and offer your services – in the same way you would go and listen to kids reading, it is just as important
• focus on the under tens, I am afraid the 10yrs+ kids are going to have to fight it out for themselves if they are so inclined – if they have not already done so
• let the exam boards work on changing the structure and content of computer science GCSEs/EBACCs and A Levels, but be prepared that this will be a long-burn slow-win until we have taught the basics to the junior school kids