MISSION STATEMENT
Our Lady and St. Patrick’s College strives to enable all students to develop fully their potential and to prepare them for life and work in this new technological age.

RATIONALE

The College starts with the premise that the curriculum should reflect the real needs of the students in coping with life after they leave the College. As ICT is such an important part of all aspects of contemporary life, students must be provided with the necessary skills and understanding to use ICT effectively.

In addition, employing ICT techniques and strategies allows teachers to discover new ways of sharing expertise to improve the learning environment.

 AIMS

• To develop a whole school approach to I.C.T. ensuring continuity and progression.
• To encourage students to gain confidence and enjoyment from their I.C.T. activities and to develop skills which extend and enhance their learning throughout the curriculum
• To provide students with opportunities to acquire, develop, understand, demonstrate and apply ICT concepts and processes appropriately in a variety of contexts across the curriculum.
• To provide opportunities for them to transfer their knowledge, understanding and skills in a variety of meaningful contexts across the curriculum.
• To promote the use of e-learning to enable students to communicate with audiences beyond the school.
• To facilitate staff development in I.C.T

PLANNING

§         ICT is fully integrated into the new college development plan. E-learning is a specific priority and will be addressed in 2010-2012.

§         HOD’s are provided with information regarding the college’s curriculum plans for ICT which is cascaded to teachers in their departments. It gives them an overview of the use of ICT at Key Stage 3 and they can see where their subject contributes to the overall picture.

§         The college audits year 8 pupils in terms of skills and competences and the results are used to inform the content of ICT being delivered at KS3.

§         All schemes of work include opportunities for the use of ICT.

§         Many teachers use ICT in the development of resources and also in the delivery of lessons.

PLANNED OBJECTIVES

To develop knowledge, skills and understanding in a wide range of ICT related skills.

Students will be given opportunities to experience the breadth of ICT as described below:

Explore is about looking for, finding, choosing and using information as well as using digital tools to investigate and solve problems. It ranges from resources being provided for pupils to pupils being more independent and discriminating users of ICT. This ‘E’ often forms the first part of work in which a pupil engages.

Express is about pupils being creative and developing and presenting their ideas using text, sound, music and still or moving images. It ranges from pupils using simple text, sound or pictures to the production of a multimedia product.

Exchange is about pupils collaborating with others online to share and develop their ideas using safe and acceptable online behaviour. This can include sending an e-mail, participating in a video-conference, contributing to an online course or using collaborative online tools. Tasks with a strong Exchange focus can also make a valuable contribution to the richness of pupils’ experiences of Explore and Express.

Evaluate is about pupils reflecting on their process and outcome, thinking about how they carried out the task and how they might improve upon what they did. Tasks with a strong focus on problem solving can ensure more explicit coverage of this ‘E’.

Exhibit is about pupils managing and showcasing their work digitally. It ranges from pupils printing and saving their work to organizing and maintaining digital personalized areas.

IMPLEMENTATION

Key Stage 3

ICT is delivered as a subject across the whole curriculum and to facilitate this, students must be equipped with a minimum skill level in as short a time as possible. For this reason ICT is taught as a discrete subject to all Years 8, 9 and 10 students.

Year 8

Topics covered include basic housekeeping, use of memory pens and other storage devices, file types, college networks, creation of video stories using Photostory and presentations using PowerPoint.

Years 9 & 10

Units covered include web design, spreadsheets, databases, mail merge techniques and advanced presentation software techniques. Theory topics covered include awareness of computer viruses and applications of computer technology in everyday life.

All Key Stage 3 students have taken part in the Certificate of Competence (CCIT) and achieved an overall Level 6.                  [Last entry June 2009].

 Coverage of the 5E’s mentioned above has been planned for and presently some of the desirable features are being incorporated into the schemes of work at KS3 as follows:

 Key Stages 4 & 5

Years 11 & 12

At KS4 students may specialize in ICT as a GCSE subject or may do the ECDL as a twilight course.

Years 13 & 14

‘AS’ and ‘A’ Level courses are offered in both ICT and Computing.

All students do ICT as a Key Skill in Year 13 at either Level 2 or Level 3.

LEARNING AND TEACHING
All Schemes of work include references to ICT activities and enable pupils to develop skills in using ICT to explore, express, exchange, evaluate and exhibit. These schemes are evaluated regularly.
Each pupil is provided with a variety of ICT skills during dedicated ICT classes. These include a number of the desirable features detailed in the CEA accreditation scheme.

The students then use and develop these skills in the various contexts of their Key Stage 3 subjects.

Teachers aim to set motivating, challenging and interesting tasks within the context of the subject ensuring that the ICT supports the achievement of the lesson objectives.

A range of ICT resources is used to enhance the quality of students’ work and they are encouraged to produce homework and coursework using ICT, where appropriate.

Staff will use a range of teaching styles with ICT i.e. whole class, small group and individual use of ICT equipment.

Provision will be made for differentiation in order to develop the potential of the ICT capable child as well as that for the less able pupil.

Where possible pupils will be encouraged to use self evaluation and peer evaluation.

Documents for students’ use are placed in Learning Resources and this includes the use of many worksheets.

Students are encouraged to e-mail work and to make use of the home access to their ‘My Documents’ area.

ASSESSMENT AND RECORDING
All year 8 students’ ICT skills are assessed on entry to the college and again at the end of Key Stage 3. These results are used to inform the content of ICT classes at KS3.

9 departments are currently involved in assessing and reporting Using ICT at KS3.

This started in 2007-2008 with Year 8 and by June 2010 all KS3 pupils will have an ICT report in 2 subject areas. They are presently:

Year 8: Art & Geography

Year 9: Home Economics, French, German, Irish and Spanish

Year 10: History & Technology

It is intended to include more subjects in assessment and reporting in future years.

All Key Stage 3 students have taken part in the Certificate of Competence (CCIT) and achieved an overall   Level 6. [Last entry June 2009]. We plan to continue this with the new ICT accreditation scheme.

Students’ additional ICT achievements are recorded in their record of achievement.

These include:

• CCIT (Key Stage 3),
• ECDL (Key Stage 4),
• ICT (GCSE)
• Key Skills Level 2
• Key Skills Level 3
• ICT (AS/A Level)
• Computing (AS/A Level).

MONITORING AND EVALUATION

During departmental meetings teachers meet to:

• Monitor and evaluate current ICT practice within their department, including pupils’ continuity and progress.
• Discuss the programmes of work and evaluate the success and progress of the relevant units.
• Make suggestions for changes to be made.
• Review work produced by the students
• Moderate students’ work

 The ICT coordinators conduct annual audits on:

§         Booking systems

§         Pupil skills

§         Curriculum coverage

§         Staff skills

§         Cross-curricular work

RESOURCES

There is an ICT committee which oversees the allocation of ICT resources and plans for the future needs of the college. It is made up of the Principal, the ICT manager, the bursar and the ICT coordinator.

Currently, there is a total of 215 PC’s available for class use - 3 computer suites and 10 clusters located throughout the college – Careers, English, Science, Technology, French/Mathematics, Music/Art, History, Geography and the Library.
Booking systems are in operation for the computer suites and the clusters.

Peripherals include - a range of printers and scanners and a number of data projectors.

Interactive white boards are located in Maths, French, Spanish, History, I.C.T., LLW, Science and Technology departments.

All students have access to their ‘My Documents’ and Learning Resources from home. This information is contained in the college diary and on the college website.

To maximize out-of-hours use of ICT resources, the college provides computer access before school, at both lunchtimes and after-school.

The college has one ICT manager and has recently appointed an assistant ICT technician whose primary work will be in the ICT department.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT
Whole staff training has been provided in the following areas:

§         C2k network and the associated software packages.     

§         General use of interactive whiteboards                          

§         Subject specific training in IWB in the relevant curricular areas.                 [2008 – 2009]

§         Cross-curricular skills – assessment                                                       [2008 – 2009]

§         College website                                                                                     [2008 – 2009]

§         Wholeschool.tv                                                                                      [2008 – 2010]

Other specialist training has been provided as follows:

• ICT non-specialist teachers.                                                                      [2007 – 2010]
• Photoshop training for Art staff                                                                   [2009]
• Learning NI for ICT staff and members of Geography and History departments[2010]

Staff are given the opportunity to identify training needs in relation to the School Development Plan/Department Action Plans and in response training courses are organized.

Training is provided in-house by college staff, SEELB ICT officers and C2k staff.

COLLABORATION

§         Working group with Grosvenor Grammar school to share resources and collaborate on Learning NI as a VLE.

§         Training in Cross Curricular skills – Grosvenor, Newtownbreda and Our Lady & St. Patrick’s.

§         Video conferencing course with Grosvenor Grammar school – TEFL provided by BMC

§         OLTE – learning how to become an on-line tutor and to provide courses/classes via a VLE [RTU]

§         Dissolving Boundaries –Cross border collaboration  Geography - Scoil uí Mhuíre, Dunleer [UU]