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Section 7 Specific Issues 7.1 ICT 5-14 and the relationship to other stages of learning The 5-14 stages will make a significant contribution to the development in pupils of knowledge, skills and attitudes in ICT. However, ICT developed during these stages should be regarded as part of a longer-term development of an important core skill. This starts during the pre-school stage and continues through the remaining secondary school years, with ongoing progression through further/higher education, the world of work and in adult life. ICT experiences in 5-14 should be regarded as making a key contribution to the development of important lifelong learning skills. ICT is not always specified as a compulsory content element of the curriculum at each stage or in each school subject. However, there is little doubt that it is regarded as making, at each stage, a significant contribution to general skills development, and ICT skills are now regarded as one of a set of core skills that is seen as vital to the educational development of young people. 7.2 ICT experiences in the early years Even before they arrive in a pre-school centre many children will have had experience of the uses of ICT within their own home and in the wider community. Computers and ICT are now a significant part of their everyday lives, and within the pre-school centre children will often be provided with a range of opportunities to explore these technologies through role-play and first-hand experience. While ICT can enhance children's learning across all aspects of development and learning, outlined in A Curriculum Framework for Children 3 to 5 (Scottish CCC, 1999), children usually play with computers in pairs or in groups and this provides an important context for their emotional, personal and social development. For the adults in pre-school centres ICT offers a new way of enhancing their own professional development, sharing ideas with others across the sector and making planning, recording and reporting more effective and efficient. 7.3 ICT provision beyond S2 Pupils will increasingly use ICT knowledge and skills within the subjects they have chosen beyond S2. This will consolidate and continue to develop their ICT capability. The articulation of ICT 5-14 with particular standard grade subjects is not straightforward because: there has been considerable change in technology since standard grade was introduced advances in the user interface and computer software mean that ICT learning outcomes can be          achieved at an earlier stage not all pupils will select subjects with embedded ICT content. Information technology is one of the framework of core skills developed under the Higher Still programme (for more information, see Core Skills: Information for Senior Managers, HSDU, 1999) and that now form part of the National Qualifications framework. This core skill focuses on `the ability to use information technology to process information'. The core skill information technology is about students being able to: use computers to which they have access run and use software applications search for and retrieve information. The strands in ICT 5-14 articulate well with these outcomes and progression from ICT 5-14 to the Higher Still core skill will be appropriate, coherent and apply to all pupils. Specific 5-14 levels and core skill levels will continue to evolve in the future. The place of IT as a core skill within the Higher Still framework moves some way towards the proposal that by 2002 most school leavers should have a good understanding of ICT (Connecting the Learning Society, DfEE, 1997). The core skill in itself is not designed to produce IT specialists and there are specific courses available to enable students to develop this role. [RETURN TO 5-14 ONLINE] [BACK] [INDEX] [NEXT] © The 5-14 Curriculum (Scotland) Guidelines were produced by the Scottish Executive and Learning and Teaching Scotland and are reproduced with permission from the Queen's Printer for Scotland.