Fellow former British schoolkid here. One part that really sticks in my memory about "IT" class was when they were preparing us for an exam that asked "which of these are functions of an image editor" and we had to memorize that, I think "fill tool" was, "pen tool" wasn't, "adjust brightness" was, and so on, without reason or reference to reality. There was just a list and you had to know it.

I imagine these people were delighted when a Big Computer Company offered to step in and design a curriculum for them.