ICT Department Home Page
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We now have 4 dedicated ICT suites for the department and continue to expand our facilities for teaching ICT; both as a subject and as a cross-curricular skill. As ICT continues to develop as a core subject, alongside English, Maths and Science, the need for pupils to develop the confidence and capability in ICT is, in the 21st Century, becoming as important as skills such as reading and writing. As well as the traditional ‘office’ software we are helping pupils to develop their understanding of a variety of multimedia applications.
Why Should I or my child study ICT ?
Watch this clip about how the world is changing ICT is becoming central to the employment of more and more people at home and at work.
New schemes of work are being introduced that make less use of printed evidence in a move to reduce the environmental impact of our work and to convey the concept that work can be conducted across the world electronically. The impact of modern technologies can be seen in the changes on the high street, the local employment market, Digital TV and Social networking systems such as bebo, facebook and Youtube. Pupils need to be aware of the ways in which such technologies may affect their lives and discussion of the up and down side of technological development helps equip pupils to make informed decisions about the kinds of information they themselves place in the public domain.
In Years 7 and 8 pupils study ICT for two hours per week, with one hour a week in Year 9. From early in Year 7 pupils will be creating web sites and animations as well as completing work using office-based software. These skills are then available for pupils to use in the work they do across the school. The depth and complexity of the program of study develops throughout Years 8 and 9 in preparation for GCSE's.
A new direction for next year is the introduction of game creation to Year 7 which we hope will increase the motivation of pupils, who we know enjoy playing games, and potentially unleash the as yet untapped creative ability of some pupils.
If you want a look at how to make games, try www.gamelearning.net
At Key Stage 4 we offer OCR Nationals in either ICT (1, 2, 3 or 4 GCSE's), iMedia (1 or 2 GCSE's) or Business (2 GCSE's). Both programs make extensive use of essential ICT skills but the ICT course extends into multimedia rather than business applications. Between these two options most KS4 pupils will be taking an ICT-related course. From 2008 all pupils in Key Stage 4 will be required to meet Functional Skills Standards in ICT along side English and Mathematics as a pre-requisite to achieving GCSE qualifications in any subject, for further information see:
www.qca.org.uk/qca_6066.aspx
If you want to know more about how young people use ICT socially, take a look at the following web site www.childnet-int.org, there you will find information on how young people use the internet and mobile phones and how you can take a few steps to help keep them safe.
