When the new term begins - in some eight to nine weeks time - for many educationalists the National Curriculum will at last be here for real. At least in the core subjects of Mathematics, Science and English as well as Technology. What is more, we now have both Statutory and Non-Statutory guidance to suggest how best to approach it all.

This month Beebug Education examines how this will affect teachers at both Primary and Secondary level as far as the requirements for Information Technology are concerned.

Earlier Beebug Education articles argued that there are shortcomings in the way the National Curriculum has been introduced. These criticisms - and the chronic lack of funds to implement it from the computer/IT point of view - will not be repeated again.

Instead, what follows is a checklist of how teachers with experience of using Acorn equipment may want to make sure that no area of pupil's experience is ignored. Little mention is made of specific software titles: it will be found more productive to assess the packages you already know and use against the requirements outlined here. Indeed, IT co-ordinators or Heads of Department might like to draw up lists of their own and compare them with the implied list that follows.

Central to all activities in any classroom are the four modes of communicating verbally: talking (and listening), writing (and reading). The English document is quite specific about the implications for IT. With reference [non-statutory guidance, para 4.10] to Attainment Target (AT) 1, Speaking and Listening, the importance of discussion around the computer - with pupils perhaps engaged on adventure games - is seen as crucial.

The same activity is also cited [8.12] as a valuable reading development tool, though clearly it will be necessary for teachers to use as rich a selection of reading material on the computer as possible, provided reading is tackled with the emphasis on inquiry, not drill and practice. Since language is about communication, the sending and receiving of messages - perhaps via Electronic Mail - has a large part to play. Here is an immediate hardware implication: equip yourself with a modem and access to an on-line system of some kind, Prestel or Campus 2000, for instance.

Where writing is concerned, a word processor and desktop publisher of some kind - preferably with mailmerge and a built-in spelling checker (and perhaps a style-checker and thesaurus) must now be seen as essential. Once more, it is the idea of having an audience that counts. Since presentation to this end is important, making sure that there is adequate provision for hardcopy is as crucial as ever. Maybe this will mean more printers.

On a different tack, those programs such as the recently released Knowledge Organiser (Clares, for the A3000 and Archimedes range) which assist pupils in the logging and direct manipulation of thought and ideas have a special place. The English non-statutory guidance again [paragraph 12.7] suggests that some writing should be the basis for thought. This may alter, too, the way word processors are used in class. It is to be hoped that they will be more frequently seen as tools to draft, develop and compose writing in preference to just the means of knocking out fair-copies.

A key area in maths that will be new for some is that of data-handling (ATs 12, 13 and 14). A whole range of software is relevant to this area of work.

These include graph packages, capable of displaying block-graphs, Carroll Diagrams, line and bar-line graphs, scattergrams, frequency tables, and pie-charts. Packages capable of best-fit (as well as mean, median, mode and range of frequency) calculations will have the edge too. Maybe one comprehensive suite that handles all aspects of data manipulation and display will fit the bill.

Data, once entered into a database, must be capable of interrogation and manipulation; so a full-feature and easy to use database (not just Teletext, say) is a must. Since it is likely that staff from curriculum areas other than IT will integrate their work with such an activity, it will be wise to choose a user-friendly database. Decide now where Quest and dBase come on the continuum that has Grass and Multistore at its most accessible end!

Sadly - as there is little or no evidence that Logo enhances understanding of either algebra or geometry - it has been included in ATs 7 and 11; now all teachers working with children and mathematics will have to be able to teach Logo competently, covering the basic turtle graphics primitives and their incorporation into procedures (including recursive ones).

The transmission and receipt of data via electronic media again figures in the Science curriculum. There is a specific Attainment Target (12) covering the use of IT, where it does not already impinge on other scientific work. Here it can easily be overlooked that the Programmes of Study are concerned not only with text but also the handling by computers of numbers, graphics and sound.

For Level 4 of this AT, every child will have to have access to sensing devices and the software to detect and measure environmental change. Actual control doesn't appear until Level 7, though Level 6 is concerned with the difference between analogue and digital representation.

There are sufficient input-output devices for the 8-bit range of BBC machines to make this eminently possible, though, once more, it will be necessary to choose software with which non-specialists can become familiar, or to equip later machines with appropriate A-D and I/O expansion cards etc.

The biggest impact of the new regime will be in obliging teachers of children of all ages to use IT in its technological role, equipment in its own right (rather than as a tool: an art package, for example).

AT 5 specifically addresses the uses to which some quite sophisticated hard and software is put. You should make sure that your institution has the machinery, for example, to "use computer-generated pictures, symbols, words and phrases to communicate meaning" [Level 2]: mouse as well as keyboard-controlled selection of icons is meant here; and the touchscreen or much under-used Concept Keyboard too.

Databases crop up from Level 2 onwards - again they must be fully interactive. Data-logging and control are to be taught from Level 6 Software permitting the entry and running of sequences of commands, Logo-like, are mandatory from Level 4.

Pupils must select and use software for its ability to handle and present information in different ways according to the form it takes (words, graphics, figures etc); a good DTP package is the obvious workhorse here, though not the only one: some of the newer integrated data-handling software only realistically implementable on the 32-bit range - like Genesis (Software Solutions) - must be considered.

Pupils are expected to be familiar with the idea that a piece of software can simulate a real-life situation and can handle the data and variables which have been input effectively to problem-solve and predict something that would otherwise be impractical or impossible in real life.

This may well be a humble spreadsheet - or (more difficult to plan for because not at all content-free) a simulation whose subject matter relates only to the topic being worked on - say breeding patterns, a budget or humidity control. It is expected that pupils will be taught methods not only of interpreting the data processed by this and similar packages but also learn methods of checking plausibility and reliability of results.

Although it is unlikely that IT will figure prominently in the remaining curricula to be published, it ought to have a place in Music and Art in the obvious ways. Anticipating just how great a place would not be wise. What cannot be ignored, though, is that all pupils are expected to treat electronic storage and interrogation thereof as a natural study skill.

This really does imply at the least discs (not cassettes) and full-time access to a printer as well as a variety of input devices other than the keyboard. Clearly, the greater the integration of these media into all areas of pupils' experience the more successful the learning.

This has implications for staff-awareness and training as well as resourcing from this September onwards. The case has been made in earlier columns of Beebug Education that Acorn users are particularly (even singularly) well equipped to cope with these implications. All that remains to be said for next term is: "Good Luck"!