Future Vision

How we see games and education

Unless there is a clear indication from the governments that digital literacy and therefore videogames are central to national curricula there will be no incentive to include it in Initial Teacher Training (ITE) and even less to include it in the ECF.

A key purpose of ITE (in the UK - similar outlines are set out by other education systems globally) is to ensure that trainee teachers are equipped with the ‘knowledge and skills to teach all children well’. The majority of Early Career Teachers will be gamers. They will already be familiar with videogames and are ideally placed to be ambassadors for them in the classroom. What they need is for a higher authority to validate their use. In the UK, they need to emulate Ofsted’s dictum and “Learn that” videogames and the industry are an established and integral part of our culture and “Learn how” to utilise videogames and the industry to impart essential knowledge and develop digital literacy.

Checkpoint Learning is in the unique position of being able to support schools and home educators interested in promoting digital literacy by providing a range of quality assured resources, consultancy and CPD courses together with unparalleled access to the industry itself - decentralising education.

Due to the ubiquitous nature of videogames Checkpoint Learning resources are not restricted to use in the UK. They can be used as the foundation for any education system anywhere in the world and a diverse range of subject specific assessment targets can easily be incorporated. Checkpoint resources utilise the cultural capital of gaming together with child-centred pedagogy to preserve and develop children’s natural learning ability, giving them the skills they need for life in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

The UK government define cultural capital as ‘the best that has been thought and said’*. Unfortunately, creating a retrospective education system (in the case of the UK an EBacc based on a 1904 academic curriculum) means that it is always at least two steps behind. If and when the government choose to include digital learning in England, they will base it on the best of the past, presumably our current interaction with and utilisation of the Internet. It may surprise them to know that Web 3.0, blockchain and metaverses are already here. Checkpoint is already pioneering content distribution and are fully cognisant with the realities of living in 4IR. The future is already here, children deserve to be a part of it to understand it so one day they may utilise it with confidence and control it.

* https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-inspection-handbook-eif/school-inspection-handbook