ICT
| Staff | Mr Andrew Tunbridge |
-
Head of Department |
Mr Dan White |
||
| Mr Jonathon Snell | ||
| Mr Robert Courtice |
Our approach
We aim to provide students with the ICT skills that they will need for:
-
their studies - employment
- their leisure
As far as possible we will teach students to use industry standard software
Whenever we can we will give students tasks that are business or work related.
We will set very high expectations for our students’ work – we will expect them to produce documents that are as good as, or better than the professional examples we show them.
Examples
Parents have frequently requested that we teach touch typing, so we spend the first 5-10 minutes of every lesson in Years 7, 8 and 9 practicing touch typing.
We teach students to use industry standard software such as Dreamweaver, InDesign, Fireworks and Photoshop from Year 7 onwards.
We teach some rules for good graphic design from Year 7 onwards, based on this excellent book: “The non-designers design book – by Robin Williams”
Curriculum Overview
Year 7, 8, 9
We have one lesson per week. Students learn to use a wide range of software including: Spreadsheet, Wordprocessor, Database (Access), Image manipulation (Photoshop and Fireworks), Web page editing (HTML coding and Dreamweaver), Video editing (MovieMaker), Desktop Publishing (InDesign). We are introducing programming in Scratch and Visual Basic.
Years 10 and 11
All students have one core ICT lesson per week. In this time most students study for GCSE Business and Communications Systems – a work based course that reinforces essential vocational use of ICT.
Students can also choose ICT as an option. From 2013 there will be 2 option choices for this:
- Students who want to develop creative use of ICT including graphics, Desk Top Publishing, advanced use of spreadsheets can opt for study for the DiDA course. This is a long established, nationally recognised and successful course that students enjoy very much. It has full GCSE equivalence. Students learn excellent IT and design skills across the full range of software, and also develop their abilities to plan and work independently. Our results in this course are excellent. Routinely 90-100% of our students get A*-C.
- Students who are more technically and mathematically minded can opt for GCSE Computing. This course focuses on programming and on technical knowledge about how computers work. Due to the programming demands of this course, successful students are likely be strong at Maths, or have shown high achievement in spreadsheet and programming tasks in ICT lessons.
Years 12 and 13
Students can study BTEC IT for one year (AS equivalent) or two years (A2 equivalent). This is a long established qualification, well recognised by employers and universities, with UCAS points exactly equivalent to A levels. The course covers areas such as programming, advanced spreadsheets, digital graphics, computer hardware/operating systems and communication skills.