Failure to disrupt: the impact of England's national computing curriculum on primary schools

This paper will report the findings of a study on the social implications of children studying computer science in state primary schools. Computer science (“computing”) was added to England’s National Curriculum in 2014 with the purported purpose of providing students with the technical and critical thinking skills necessary to participate socially, civically, and economically in an increasingly networked society (Castells, 2000; Department for Education, 2013; Department for Education and Gove, 2014). However, computing and educational technologies are not neutral tools, nor do they have a contextfree essential nature; they are “ideologically freighted” (Selwyn, 2014) with the values of their creators and advocates – for example, those of venture capitalists invested in EdTech companies, technologists interested in training their future workforce, and politicians looking to build up the prestige and economic strength of London’s Silicon Roundabout. Big claims have been made by policymakers and industry leaders regarding the supposedly disruptive nature of technology in regard to social institutions such as formal education and the workplace. However, there is little evidence to support these claims, especially as the teaching of computing has now been constricted by the requirements of the National Curriculum and Ofsted oversight