ICT Department:
Department Staff:
• Mr Paul Edmunds– Assistant Principal- ICT
• Miss Sabrina White- Area Leader
• Mr Matthew Nicholls- Second in Department/ECDL Centre Manager
• Mrs Lindsay Jones- Subject Teacher
• Mrs Stella Teresa- ICT Teaching Assistant
The department:
The department has four main teaching rooms. Around the college there are many other ICT facilities; there is a library suite, a music suite and there are many clusters around the college for example in English and Sanctuary. Most departments also have their own departmental laptops to use in lessons.
Aims:
The aim of our department is to provide and deliver an engaging and innovative ICT curriculum. It is to develop student’s capability and provide them with the opportunities to mature into confident, creative and independent users of ICT. We aim that all students will leave College with the skills and confidence in ICT that they will need to be successful in their future lives.
Description of the courses offered:
Key Stage 3:
During Key Stage 3 pupils are taught a range of exciting and innovative courses.
Year 7: Students are taught using ‘ICT4life’ courseware. This is a new and innovative course which centres around an e-book. The 3 units within this course are; creating a virtual tour of the college, helping an animal rescue centre and creating and editing games. There is an additional unit created by the department relating to E-Safety.
Year 8: Students are taught an internally developed ‘business enterprise unit’. At the beginning of the year pupils form a company and throughout the year they; create new innovative products, carrying out research primary and secondary research on their product and the market, create a website for their business, organise the customer records and promotion of their business, organise and manipulate data for their business.
Year 9: Students complete an ‘ICT in business’ unit, where they work for a company ‘Crazy Dayz’. They provide the company with health and safety information, create promotional materials and organise their finances and customer information files. Students also complete an E-safety unit investigating how they can stay safe both at College and at home.
Key Stage 4:
In Key Stage 4 all students study for the OCR Level National Certificate in ICT, which is worth the equivalent of 1, 2, 3 or 4 GCSEs at Grade “C” or above depending on the number of units successfully completed.
They have the opportunity to complete units on databases, spreadsheets, web design, e-commerce, and desktop publishing.
European Computer Driving License (ECDL)
The ICT Department delivers ECDL to external candidates from within the local community. This qualification is a popular, internationally respected, vocational qualification in basic computing skills. The course consists of seven modules, each of which has a 45 minute test.