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Department Overview
The department is responsible for the delivery and assessment of Information and Communication Technology throughout the school. ICT is a compulsory subject for all students during both Key Stages at The William Allitt School.
ICT is delivered by specialist ICT staff.
Key Stage 3 ICT
Students in Year 7 have ICT subsumed within their “Opening Minds” curriculum (includes Humanities, English and PSHE) and develop a number of their skills including word processing, DTP skills, spreadsheets basics and web page creation. These are further developed in years 8 and 9 along with other skills such as databases and further web site design / production.
Students in Year 8 follow a course based on the government’s current National Curriculum recommendations. The following topics are studied:- Internet safety, Computer Control, Desktop Publishing, Computer Modelling, Multimedia presentations and Data Handling.
Students in Year 9 follow a course based on the OCR National First Award in ICT. This course allows the students early entry for the Key stage 4 course they then continue to study in Years 10 and 11.
As well as learning the technical skills relating to software packages, great emphasis is placed on when and why to use them, along with consideration of audience and purpose. At the same time students consider the effects of ICT use on society in general.
Key Stage 4 ICT
At Key Stage 4 (years 10 and 11) in 2010/11 students who choose the ICT option follow a course leading to the OCR National Award in ICT, which is equivalent to 2 GCSEs. The course includes “traditional” ICT elements such as the use of databases and spreadsheets, along with the design and creation of multimedia products involving the use of video etc.
More details of the course may be found at http://www.ocr.org.uk/
All students at Key Stage 4 study 1 period a week of ICT. The students continue with the course they started in Year 9, leading to the OCR National First Award in ICT qualification, which is equivalent to 1 GCSE.
ICT across the curriculum
The use of ICT features widely in other subjects throughout the school. ICT rooms are booked by departments to support their curriculum needs. Use of many data projectors in school are also used to
facilitate this.
Specialist software packages are used in many subjects and more general packages are regularly used to produce class and coursework in all subjects. Many departments have and make extensive use of their own ICT facilities as well as access to the main ICT rooms.
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