It was announced last week that the UK government will be replacing the current Information and Communications Technology curriculum with that of a Computer Science focused course.

In a move that has been strongly welcomed by the development community, it will mean a dramatic about turn from this time last year when the government were then considering making ICT a non-compulsory part of the curriculum.

As someone who studied ICT throughout my school life, taking qualifications at GCSE level (age 14-16), then IT at AS and A-Level (age 16-18) I think that this is a great move. The current system revolves heavily around theory rather than practice, and is often criticised for the extent that the Microsoft Office suite is taught, with a key observation being that it seems to teach students how to be end-users rather than creators. In a world that revolves so heavily around digital, this is a real shame on several levels.

2011 was a tough year, but a very good year. Whenever New Year rolls around I inevitably tend to start thinking about where I was and what I was doing at the same point a year ago. Usually I can't believe how much things have changed, and this year is no exception.

This year has been incredibly busy, both personally and professionally, and has been unlike anything previous. There have been some amazing highlights, but it has all come after an awful lot of hard work, and I've learnt a lot of tough lessons about what not to do. I've spent a ridiculous amount of time in planes, trains and automobiles, I've gone 8 months without a proper break, my twitter feed has seen many rants about the M25 and Xbox Live, and I've learned to live with very little sleep. On the positive side I've bought my first home, moved across the country and transitioned out of the office every day, been given some exciting responsibilities at work, I've met and worked with some great people, and I've been able to travel to places and events that I've wanted to go to for ages.

Earlier this year I made the tough decision to commit to moving out of Kent, and up to East Anglia. This obviously tied into decisions about my working life, which up until that point had revolved around heading in to the office in Tunbridge Wells every day for the last 6 years. After some very honest chats with the directors at Lightmaker, it was decided that both parties would give me working remotely a chance.

A while ago, before we were nominated for an Adobe MAX award, I did an interview regarding Lightmaker's use of Adobe technologies for our work with The R&A and The Open Championship 2011. I'm pleased to say that this has been turned into a Success Story for the adobe.com site, and is now live.

You can read the full story here:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/showcase/index.cfm?event=casestudydetail&casestudyid=1691407

Lightmaker's news story is here:
http://www.lightmaker.com/#!/portfolio/lightmaker-an-adobe-success-story/