The following is an email to the CBI regarding a campaign they are running called Ambition for All in Schools.  Information can be found here http://www.cbi.org.uk/campaigns/ambition-for-all/

Dear Jenny,

I am a Head of ICT at a school in Oxfordshire. I am also part of a group developing a subject called #digitalstudies which will be launching in a couple of schools in September at year 7 level. It has been developed as an ‘upgrade’ from the old ICT curriculum as a way of providing an engaging, relevant, challenging and modern computing curriculum for pupils.

We have a number of objectives with #digitalstudies but one which would be relevant to business is our desire to create a subject which helps prepare pupils for work and employment primarily in jobs requiring digital technology skills. We are looking to encourage this through not only the content which pupils will work through but also through further skills such as team work, collaboration and decent presentation skills.

We are very interested in therefore establishing further links with business so that we can continue to develop our subject to match what industry is hoping to see happen in schools. We are also interested in seeing whether we can assist with your Ambition for All campaign in whatever way would be possible.

Our wiki is here http://digitalstudieswiki.pbworks.com containining further information about our subject.

Yours,

Brian Sharland
@sharland
#digitalstudies steering group

Nic Patterson
@teachesICT

Chris Allan
@infernaldepart