The Royal Society has suggested ways the government can overhaul information and communications technology (ICT) teaching in schools, following promises from Education Secretary Michael Gove to scrap the way the subject is currently taught.

The body, which oversees UK sciences, recommends dividing computing into distinct subjects such as computer science and digital literacy and it said the government must do more to recruit specialist ICT teachers.

The report was led by Prof Steve Furber, the designer of the BBC Micro, widely acknowledged as one of the first educational computers, who was commissioned to investigate why there has been a chronic decline in the numbers of students studying ICT and computing.

The publication of his report is timely as it follows just days after Mr Gove’s speech to educationalists in which he said current ICT lessons were “demotivating and dull”. Mr Gove pledged that from September the government will introduce a flexible curriculum in computer science and programming, designed with the help of universities and industry.

Prof Furber said something had to be done to halt the decline in those wanting to learn computing skills: “The UK has a proud history of leading the way in the field of computer science and associated disciplines, from the development of the world’s first stored-program computers to more recent innovations such as the invention of the world wide web. However, from this bright start, we are now watching the enthusiasm of the next generation waste away through poorly conceived courses and syllabuses.”

The report also highlighted the lack of specialist ICT teachers: according to government statistics only 35% of ICT teachers are specialists, compared to more than 80% for core subjects such as maths and English.

The last couple of months seem to have flown by as we work on some exciting developments aimed at bringing Learnalot to a wider audience, and as we’re such a small team this has unfortunately impacted the development of new resources and games. This however is something that we aim to address soon.

So, as we re-focus our efforts on developing more content at the start of a new academic year, we’ve decided to slash our prices by a massive 50% for a limited time, effective immediately. Full details can be found on our purchase page, but the new prices are as follows:

• Primary schools (G&T) – £50
• Secondary schools with 1-300 students – £100
• Secondary schools with 301-600 students – £135
• Secondary schools with 601-1000 students – £170
• Secondary schools with 1000+ students – £200
• Home learners (up to 4 children and a parent or guardian) – £20

School prices are subject to VAT which can be claimed back whereas the home price obviously includes VAT.

An online game called Foldit has helped determine the structure of an enzyme that could pave the way for anti-Aids drugs. The game allows players to create new shapes of proteins by randomly folding digital molecules on their computer screens.

In the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, scientists write that they have been puzzled by the protein’s structure for over a decade but it took the online community just a few days to produce the enzyme’s model.

Proteins are extremely complex organic compounds that everything is made of, and an enzyme is a particular type of protein. The enzyme the gamers were presented with is called M-PMV retroviral protease – an enzyme that plays a key role in the development of a virus similar to HIV.

Following simple rules, gamers playing Foldit had to turn and flip a digital 3D model of the enzyme on their computer screens, to try out all folding combinations that were possible. They eventually obtained the optimum one – the state that needed the lowest energy to maintain.

Biochemist Firas Khatib of the University of Washington – where Foldit was created in 2008 – said that the goal was to see if “human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed”.

The researchers were so impressed with the result that they even included some participating gamers as co-authors of the study.

Learnalot’s game-based learning resources task users with solving real-world problems in similar ways. You can sign up for a free 14-day trial here.

Cambridge Econometrics says the UK is set to miss the 2017 climate change targets it is legally bound to meet, and will also miss future targets by increasingly larger margins.

“The unmistakable lesson from the effect of emissions reduction policies 1997-2010 is that policies tend to have a lower impact than forecast, and therefore their strength needs to be increased if targets are to be achieved,” said senior consultant Paul Ekins from the Energy Institute at University College London.

Separately, a report from a coalition of green groups says the government is not living up to its “greenest ever” pledge. The government says it is making progress on a number of fronts and points out that emissions from the government’s own activities in Westminster, Whitehall and around the country have fallen by nearly 14% in a single year. Emissions from the nation as a whole actually grew during 2010 however, as the economy began a modest recovery from the recession.

The country has also missed the target of cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2010 that was set by Labour before coming to power in 1997.

In Britain’s Got Power students are tasked with ensuring that the government achieves its 2020 CO2 emissions targets by completing a number of objectives as the Head of the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

Research suggests that primary school pupils can do well at maths even if they do not know simple sums by heart. A study of the way eight and nine-year-olds approach arithmetic found that many were above average at maths without knowing facts expected of them.

England’s national curriculum says all children should know addition and subtraction facts between 0 and 20 but the Institute of Education study suggests that children can still succeed without this knowledge when they understand number concepts.

Prof Richard Cowan of London’s Institute of Education, explained that traditionally children have been required to learn addition and subtraction of numbers between 0 and 20 as a set of facts. In the 1920s and 1930s this was learnt by rote like a times table with children being told off for using their fingers and it is still specified as a requirement in England’s national curriculum by the end of Year 3.

But his study, which followed 259 pupils aged eight to nine at a school in Windsor, Berkshire, found that none of the children knew all these so-called number facts, even in Year 4 but some of them were still doing very well.

He said he was surprised by how few facts some of the successful young mathematicians knew. This was contrary to the traditional view which assumed that children should learn facts before they learn the principles around them, he said.

“We are not saying that fact knowledge is irrelevant, just that it develops more slowly than the national curriculum allows and that this does not jeopardise children’s mathematics progress.” He added: “If parents want to help their children succeed at maths, then they should encourage them to use their knowledge of principles to solve problems, not get them to memorise the answers to problems like parrots.”

Learnalot’s resources and games do just that by encouraging skills-based learning so that students can learn the skills required to solve any number of problems.

At the MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, Google chairman Eric Schmidt has said education in Britain is holding back the country’s chances of success in the digital media economy and that the UK needed to reignite children’s passion for science, engineering and maths.

Dr Schmidt told the audience of broadcasters and producers that Britain had invented many items but were no longer the world’s leading exponents in these fields. He said: “If I may be so impolite, your track record isn’t great. The UK is home of so many media-related inventions. You invented photography. You invented TV. You invented computers in both concept and practice. It’s not widely known, but the world’s first office computer was built in 1951 by Lyons’ chain of tea shops. Yet today, none of the world’s leading exponents in these fields are from the UK.”

He said he had been flabbergasted to learn that computer science was not taught as standard in UK schools, despite what he called the “fabulous initiative” in the 1980s when the BBC not only broadcast programmes for children about coding, but shipped over a million BBC Micro computers into schools and homes. “Your IT curriculum focuses on teaching how to use software, but gives no insight into how it’s made. That is just throwing away your great computing heritage.”

He also said the UK needed to bring art and science back together, as it had in the “glory days of the Victorian era” when Lewis Carroll wrote one of the classic fairy tales, Alice in Wonderland, and was also a mathematics tutor at Oxford.

A report that was commissioned by Education Secretary Michael Gove and Prime Minister David Cameron when they were in opposition in 2009 has recommended that pupils in England should study maths up to the age of 18.

It says radical change is needed to give children the mathematical skills needed to succeed in a workplace where numeracy is increasingly important.

The report, headed by TV presenter Carol Vorderman, said the current system was failing young people.

Almost half of 16-year-olds fail to achieve grade C at GCSE, with just 15% studying maths beyond that level. This compares to almost all other industrialised countries, the report says, where either all, or nearly all, students study maths to the age of 18.

She said more than 300,000 16-year-olds each year completed their education without enough understanding of maths to function properly in their work or private lives.

She said 24% of economically active adults were “functionally innumerate”, and universities and employers complained that school-leavers did not have necessary maths skills.

Ms Vorderman told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme that 90% of pupils who did not achieve the expected standard – level 4 – in the Sats tests at age 11 would later fail to get a C at GCSE.

“If you’re on the scrap heap by 11, you will remain mathematically on the scrap heap,” she said.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) backed the recommendation for maths study to the age of 18.

“Businesses are most concerned about basic levels of numeracy and it’s alarming that more than one in five 16-19 year olds are considered functionally innumerate,” said Susan Anderson, the body’s director for education and skills policy.

The secretary for education Michael Gove praised the use of video games as a tool for learning at the Royal Society last week.

In a comprehensive speech on the future of education, Gove said “When children need to solve equations in order to get more ammo to shoot the aliens, it is amazing how quickly they can learn”.

“I am sure that this field of educational games has huge potential for maths and science teaching and I know that Marcus [Du Sautoy] himself has been thinking about how he might be able to create games to introduce advanced concepts, such as non-Euclidean geometry, to children at a much earlier stage than normal in schools.”

A subscription to Learnalot costs as little as £100 for schools. You can buy, view a demo or apply for a 14-day trial at www.learnalot.com.

Another set of recently-released government figures show that a third of secondary pupils in England fail to reach their potential in maths – and that a quarter are also making insufficient progress in English.

According to the official data around 200,000 maths pupils are failing to make the progress expected of them between starting secondary school and finishing GCSE. The data also shows a widening gap between boys and girls.

The 2010 figures show that in mainstream schools more than 37% of pupils failed to make the progress expected of them in maths, although this figure was slightly down from the 41% of 2009.

With mounting evidence that current methods and resources are failing, perhaps it’s time to look for new ways in which to engage students in these important subjects?

While we currently don’t have anything to help engage students in English, our game-based maths portal has received glowing reviews from a number teachers and students from around the country, including the following:

The look of the site has immediately caught the interest of pupils who I know love to spend time on X-Box/PlayStation at home. Harnessing an existing interest for a learning purpose is probably the Mecca of education.
- Steph Ladbrooke, teacher

I love Learnalot because I love challenges. I think it will give me a better experience at high school and beyond. I love the games too!
- Blaine, student

Great fun – especially when trying to beat each other on multiplication. Also Learnalot isn’t like a maze of links – it is very easy to navigate around.
- Edward, student

I think it’s brilliant because I like a challenge and it helps me learn especially with the timed addition games.
- Jack, student

I have found this site a great way to learn – it offers a great experience to us for next year. We have found the games very good and we are glad to have helped test it out. Britain’s Got Power is great!
- James, student

A subscription to Learnalot costs as little as £100 for schools. You can buy, view a demo or apply for a 14-day trial at www.learnalot.com.

Yesterday we received confirmation that Learnalot is now SMART accredited.

So, what does that mean? It means that SMART have evaluated the portal and have concluded that it brings opportunities for enhanced interactive learning experiences to the classroom and that it is easy to use. It also means that we are now allowed to offer Learnalot products and services on their SMART Exchange service, which has over 800,000 monthly users.

All in all, very good news indeed!