Erratic teaching approach and funding stalls coding in schools

MapR Technologies’ research, released today, found massive inconsistencies in how much schools are investing in training their teachers to deliver the new coding curriculum. Just over one in three schools (34 per cent) admitted to spending £0 on additional teacher training for coding, whereas in contrast 22 per cent of schools have spent over £3,000. MapR believes this discrepancy is “feeding the massive gap between the ‘haves and have nots’ for tech skills”, leaving some teachers unprepared, unsupported and unable to teach the new curriculum.

Eleven per cent of schools spent between £100 and £500, and 33 per cent spent between £500 and £1,000.

Paul Tarantino, Director at MapR Technologies, said: “Last year the Government pledged £3.5 million on new curriculum training. But this information shows that it’s simply not being filtered down so that every young person has a trained teacher. It’s shocking to see such a huge discrepancy in what was said in the run-up to the election compared to what these promises have translated to on the ground.”

The number of teachers trained also ranges from zero up to six depending on the school. One in ten schools trained no teachers at all, 34 per cent trained one to two teachers, 51 percent three to four teachers and 11 per cent trained five to six.

With these new figures revealing such a huge range in funding from school to school, many children are at risk of being left behind without trained teachers, while others are benefiting.

“While the Year of Code sounded great in theory, it has clearly been flawed in practice,” Tarantino added. “We need a consistent approach to teacher training across the board and more schools to take advantage of free training programmes offered by private businesses if we want the UK to compete on a global stage. If we don’t invest in technology skills today, the UK is at serious risk of falling behind.”