You're probably right. The fact is that in order to grade assignments, there needs to be a standard. GCSE's are very simple exams - they give a qualification to

You're probably right. The fact is that in order to grade assignments, there needs to be a standard. GCSE's are very simple exams - they give a qualification to people who leave school at 16, and they let people identify what areas they want to study further at A-Level or university - but they're not designed with flexibility in mind. If the person in the article wants to spend their time at home writing Objective-C and iphone apps all day long, he's welcome to - if he's as clever as he claims he is, he'll have no dearth of free time because the work load for GCSE's is relatively minimal. The smart thing to do would have been to simply follow the assignment as given (a nice simple powerpoint presentation) and get on with doing fun stuff at home. Yes, there's a shortage of qualified computer science teachers. Yes, ICT teachers probably should understand programming to a limited extent, but currently? they don't. It's not until university that the people grading his assignments will truly be able to understand his brilliance (assuming he is as he claims...), but while I don't agree with the current state of the system, I also don't think that we should ensure that every ICT teacher in front of a class of GCSE ICT students (the majority of whom would simple be unable to write any Objective-C) should be educated in current programming fashions like iPhone development so that the one brilliant student in the class can do his coursework in it.