ICT is a challenging and interesting subject to teach at Waingels. The facilities are excellent, the pupils are keen and motivated and the teaching team is innovative and always willing to learn from each other and the pupils themselves. We enjoy constantly taking new steps to utilizing the power of technology both within our teaching and more importantly to support the pupils learning. We are actively involved in providing ICT familiarization and training for other staff and the college is keen to support individual CPD through external training where appropriate.
Staffing:
The ICT department at Waingels has four full-time and two part-time specialist members of teaching staff. In support of the department and college we have an IT assistant who helps with software development and other resources and the college also employs two full-time and one part-time technicians.
Curriculum:
KS3 – Follows the QCA guidance and the KS3 ICT Strategy. These have been extensively piloted and adapted. We update our schemes of work annually to include emerging technologies and provide pupils with an experience how ICT capability can support their learning in all areas of their curriculum. The emphasis of the ICT curriculum is to develop capability and transferable skills and understanding of the advantages and limitations of using technology both within the college and outside.
In Years 7, 8 and 9 all pupils attend a discrete ICT lesson of one hour per week, taught by a specialist member of staff. After initially becoming familiar with the network and other facilities at the college which includes managing files, using email, e-safety and good practice using word processing software to produce documentation, the pupils move through the following curriculum (currently):
• Validity and reliability of information and creating an effective presentation (using a variety of information which has been created and collected ) – 7.2 and 7.1 (creating a presentation for ‘silver surfers’ about using the Internet safely.
• Spreadsheets and modelling (introduction) – 7.4 – Skills building, using a model to investigate the costs of running the school disco
• Data handling and presenting information to test a hypothesis, and producing a leaflet (similar) to include this information (7.5 and 7.3) – testing an hypothesis about chocolate, analysing quantitive information collected from a survey, producing a leaflet about chocolate to include these results.
• Using software to simulate control – 7.6
• Reliability and validity of information (particularly on the Internet) and e-safety and collecting and presenting information (public information system) – Investigating using search engines effectively. Collecting climate data to create a complex chart and combining this into a final document /report. (8.3 and 8.1)
• Modelling the cost of purchasing turf using spreadsheet software – 8.4
• Creating web pages/site: using HTML and then authoring software (collecting and refining information) 8.3 and 8.2
• Year 9 project work – identifying audience and purpose for an electronic presentation to promote a local restaurant with a theme evening. Collecting, selecting and refining information for this purpose. Discussing the development of the work and the appropriate use of ICT to support safe and effective working.
• Familiarisation for QCA Pilot 2007
KS4 - 2006
• 1 hour per fortnight for every pupil in KS4 and KS5. Focusing on building generic skills and linking to confident use of particular software. This will support and develop the use of ICT across the curriculum.
• The GCSE option is very popular, and we currently have 5 sets in Year 11 and 5 sets in Year 10.
• 2007 – ICT short course GCSE for all students (started in Year 9)
• Full course option for more able students
KS5
• A Level Computing – AS and A2 (AQA specification)
• A level ICT – AS (first course running 2006) – 2 sets
• Uptake for both courses in 2007 is good
Beyond taught lessons and Extra curricular
• CC4G club is running weekly for Year 7 and 8 girls
• ICT facilities are open every morning from 8.15 am for pupils to complete and/or print homework, check email and afternoons after the taught timetable day.
• All pupils are encouraged to use the ICT facilities to enable them to continue working from home either via the Intranet (to which they can log in from home) or using email to send work to and from home.
ICT Learning spaces and resources:
The ICT infrastructure is excellent. Within the new Weeks Building (opened Sept 2006) we have two dedicated computer rooms resource with 25 individual workstations and Interactive Whiteboards and projects. Within the rest of the college ICT has three other dedicated computer rooms each equipped with approximately 21 networked PCs, an interactive whiteboard and digital project, black/white and colour printing and scanning facilities. The design of the ICT rooms provides a flexible learning environment to facilitate a variety of learning and teaching styles. Other facilities include:
• over 320 networked computers in the college
• dedicated suites of computers in Art, English, Mathematics, Music, MFL, Humanities, Library, Design Technology and Food Technology/Textiles
• successfully using wireless access points and base stations to provide staff with laptops flexibility in connecting to the network and to temporarily extend the network to computers which will shortly be ‘hardwired’ to the network
• All teaching rooms have networked computer access
• Broadband access (10MB fibre optic connection) provides fast and reliable connection to the Internet and email communication for all users (pupils and staff). This access is available on every network computer. The college has its own Intranet (running on Microsoft Sharepoint). This is displayed as the home page for all users connecting through Internet Explorer both and Email is now used extensively to communicate information to all staff and students within the College.
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Waingels College 