Information and Communication Technology Policy

This policy document sets out the schools aims, principles and strategies for the delivery of Information Communication Technology (ICT). This policy, in line with the ICT development plan will form the basis for the development of ICT in Sacred Heart School over the next two years.

The term ‘Information Communication Technology’ (ICT) in this policy includes the use of any equipment, which allows users to communicate or manipulate information (in the broadest sense of the word) electronically.

As well as being an important curriculum requirement, the ability to use ICT effectively is becoming a vital life skill in modern society. It has never been more important that our children begin to understand and use technology from an early age. ICT has the potential to improve achievement and enrich learning throughout the school.

This policy has been reviewed to bring it into line with the new ICT infrastructure within the school.

Aims of the policy:

· To ensure that all staff understand and agree on an approach to ICT.

· To assist planning and promote development of ICT within the school.

· To explain the schools position in regards to ICT to parents, the local community and external agencies.

· To outline responsibilities for ICT tasks within school.

· To assist governors when allocating funds.

Aims of ICT in Sacred Heart R.C. Primary School:

Our aim is to produce learners who are confident and effective users of ICT. We strive to achieve this aim by:

· helping all children to use ICT with purpose and enjoyment through independent and collaborative work

· helping all children to develop the necessary skills to exploit ICT

· helping all children to become autonomous users of ICT

· helping all children to evaluate the benefits of ICT and its impact on society

· helping all children to achieve the highest possible standards of achievement

· providing children with opportunities to learn about other subjects through the medium of ICT

· meeting the requirements of the National Curriculum as fully as possible, supported by the use of the QCA units in key stage one and two

· ICT may be used to support the teaching of all subjects wherever possible.

· using ICT to develop partnerships beyond the school with community and parish links though the use of the school and parish website

· celebrating success in the use of ICT

The school will ensure that the National Curriculum requirements are being fulfilled through the use of the QCA units. The ICT QCA units will be taught discreetly through other subjects as advised by appendix A although some formal teaching of skills will be necessary. When planning activities on the computer, teachers identify some activities in which the emphasis is on the development of ICT capability and others in which the emphasis is on the subject, which is being supported by ICT. The ICT co-ordinator will meet with teachers as necessary to provide support and also ensure that the programme of study for ICT is being taught. It is important to ensure that the National Curriculum requirements for ICT in other subjects are also being met.

The emphasis of ICT is its use as a tool to provide experiences that enrich children's learning within the context of the whole curriculum. Although there are times when skills have to be taught as pre-cursor to cross-curricular use it is not intended that ICT will be delivered in isolation.

Roles and responsibilities

The roles and responsibilities with regards to ICT within Sacred Heart R.C. Primary School are as follows.

The following responsibilities are carried out by the governors:

· to set an appropriate ICT budget for the sustainability and development of ICT within the school

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The following responsibilities are carried out by the Headteacher:

· ensure the consistent implementation of the ICT policy

· to keep governors informed about developments within ICT at the school.

· to ensure technical support is provided to the school to oversee equipment maintenance

· liase with receiving schools to ensure continuity for the children

· to ensure health and safety practice and policy is inline in regards to ICT

· arrange in service support

The following responsibilities are carried out by the ICT co-ordinator:

· ensure the consistent implementation of the ICT policy

· to support the use of ICT throughout the school

· to keep up to date with new initiatives which impact on ICT provision

· to draw up and monitor an ICT development plan

· to annually audit training needs of the staff at the school in regards to ICT

· to maintain existing ICT resources and to explore ways of incorporating new resources into the school

· to monitor use of ICT consumables and ensure an appropriate provision

· to allocate available funds to maximum effect to develop ICT within the school

· to oversee equipment maintenance and co-ordinate technical support in school

· liase with receiving schools to ensure continuity for the children

· to review ICT policy on an annual basis

· to ensure continuity and progression of ICT through the school

· maintain an ICT inventory of the whole school (hardware and software)

· to ensure that appropriate ICT resources are available to support children with specific needs (in conjunction with special needs co-ordinator)

· to ensure QCA units are taught and national curriculum requirements met fully

· to oversee the development of the school website

· evaluate web sites to be used with the children to ensure children are protected from access to undesirable material

The following responsibilities are carried out by subject co-ordinators:

· plan where ICT should be used in their subject schemes of work. This might involve the use of short dedicated programs that support specific learning objectives.

· to ensure teachers fulfil the ICT objectives within the individual QCA units of given subject.

The following responsibilities are carried out by special needs co-ordinator:

· to advise on appropriate ICT resources to support children with special needs

The following responsibilities are carried out by classroom teacher:

· ensure the consistent implementation of the ICT policy

· assessment of pupils

· to develop individual class pages for school web site

· to report any faults with ICT equipment, hardware or software to the ICT co-ordinator

· plan appropriate ICT activities for individual children, groups and whole class

· evaluate web sites to be used with the children to ensure children are protected from access to undesirable material

All staff has a responsibility to support the development of the school website and must ensure they make a contribution to this public face of the school.

Teaching and learning styles

Teachers are expected to employ a range of strategies and to use their professional judgement to decide on the most appropriate.

These will include:

· using the computer and projector to demonstrate to a group of pupils or the whole class

· leading a group or class discussion about the benefits and limitations of ICT

· individual and paired work using worksheets and help cards

· collaborative writing and design work in groups.

Where one pupil is used to demonstrate or teach a skill to others, the teacher must feel confident that this is of benefit to all those involved.

Groups will be selected to ensure that all children are equally active and involved in the task and that all have access to the computer keyboard.

Some paired work may be used in mixed ability groups but the teacher must ensure that children are supporting each other and both are participating in the task.

Activities using ICT are planned in order to allow different levels of achievement by pupils or to incorporate possibilities for extension work.

Teachers are expected to intervene where appropriate to reinforce an idea or teach a new point.

Entitlement

Children will be taught ICT skills through use of the QCA units in Key Stages one and two. The QCA scheme of work does not replace the National Curriculum. It should be used as a resource for activities and appropriate levels of challenge and be interpreted with flexibility and adapted as appropriate to fit the needs of individual groups of children.

All children will have a taught ICT input of a minimum of 30 minutes per week across Key stage one and Key stage two with other inputs being incidental. Foundation stage children will have a taught input of 15 minutes per week.

Each child will have access to the Internet as outlined in the Internet policy.

Continuity and progression

The ICT co-ordinator plans the progression of software and skills development throughout the school. This will take into consideration topics being covered by each year group. In linking software to topics ICT will be incorporated into the whole curriculum. The children will only have access to age appropriate software on the school network or standalone machines but if needed access may be given to more advanced or simpler software as appropriate for individual children.

The type of hardware used and the machine specific skills are not significant in the quest for ICT capability. It is the context in which ICT is being applied that is of most importance. Progression can be afforded by working in different contexts, providing more challenging tasks, increasing the complexity of the situation in which the skills are applied and in some cases by utilising more varied software facilities. The context of the activity is just as important as the activity itself. Therefore it is important to offer reinforcement of activities so that children gain ICT capability in a variety of contexts.

Access to IT

Each classroom has at least two networked and Internet linked PCs.

Each class is allocated two weekly slots in the ICT suite with other times available.

Six interactive whiteboards are in use and in FDS/KS1 and KS2.

The school network is levelled with children having access to age appropriate software and access to their personal file storage area.

Equal opportunities

All children within Sacred Heart School should have equal access to ICT in order to develop their personal ICT capabilities. When children are working in groups we endeavour to ensure that their hands-on experience is equitable. Software and documentation is checked to ensure that gender and ethnicity are reflected in a balanced way without stereotyping. The SENCO and ICT co-ordinator jointly advise teachers on the ICT support which can be provided for children with particular educational needs, including high ability pupils.

Children with computers at home are encouraged to use them for educational purposes and parents are offered advice about what is appropriate via the school web site.

Internet Access

All children will have an opportunity to access the Internet at an appropriate supervised level. Children from year 2 to year 6 have all signed an Internet guidance sheet stating that they understand the school’s Internet policy and rules and will abide by them.

Children will have the opportunity for their work to be praised and celebrated through the school web site; work that is on the web site will be identified with the child’s first name only to ensure privacy for the child. Photographs on the school website will be groups of children or distant shots only with no children in photographs being identified or singled out.

Recording, assessment and reporting

Assessment of children’s ICT capability is achieved by planning appropriate curriculum activities in line with the school’s general policy for assessment and reporting.

Pupil’s attainment is recorded at the end of each ICT QCA unit taught. Teachers record pupil’s progress on an assessment grid sheet. Assessment sheets are collected at the end of each QCA unit assessment period by the assessment co-ordinator.

Children use the DEA assessment and target setting software to ensure that are meeting the needs of the QCA units. Children will achieve Digital Excellence Awards at their own pace which will allow teacher’s to assess standards more confidently and allow support of less able pupils and greater progression for high ability pupils.

The information from the DEA scheme will be passed onto the secondary schools wherever possible to support children as they move from KS2 to KS3.

Managing resources

The government target for pupil:pc ratio is 1:8. Kit should also be less than 5 years of age and be capable of Internet access. To sustain a school target ratio of 1:8 the school will need to buy 6 pc’s per year to ensure a sustainable transition as PC’s are written off over a five-year period. PC’s bought by the school will run windows XP, with Office 2000 and have a DVD/CD-RW drive. Machines that are bought must be network ready. Monitors will be bought at a minimum size of 17”.

The yearly budget for ICT at Sacred Heart School is determined by the development plan for ICT and by negotiation between the Headteacher and governors.

Hardware deployment within school is at the discretion of the ICT Co-ordinator in conjunction with the Headteacher and SBM to ensure that all resources are deployed to their best use. This deployment of resources is in line with the ICT development plan for the school.

New software resources are purchased on recommendation form the LA or other colleagues, after discussion with staff in appropriate age ranges and after audits of current software to identify needs. It is the responsibility of subject co-ordinators to ensure suitable software is available to support their subject although the ICT Co-ordinator will help ensure the software is suitable for the school network if applicable.

The ICT skills of staff at the school will be monitored through skills audits and appraisals. A continuous programme of professional development and training is available to support staff in appropriate areas.

External technical support is provided to the school with a helpdesk offering technical support and technicians on call to manage the school’s computer network. Teachers or support staff will inform the school clerk of any problems that may arise with computers in the school who will then phone the helpdesk. This is not the sole responsibility of the ICT Co-ordinator. A technician will also work in school for one afternoon a week to ensure a proactive system. Each PC in school is named as to the number of its network terminal to ensure faults are correctly reported and the faulty machine identified.

Links to the Management Information System (MIS)

The use of the school’s management and administration system must be confidential in nature. Staff use the administration computer in Mrs Walker’s room to complete IEP’s but no other unauthorized use of the administration system is permitted without the knowledge of the head teacher or the senior management team.

The school has electronic links for financial information via HBS but more admin links are expected with the launch of the portal in February 2004.

After-hours and community use

Children will have the opportunity to work in the ICT suite out of normal school hours as part of a computer club.

Parents are to be encouraged to join more fully with their child’s education through the medium of ICT. The school web site is to be further developed to support this and opportunities will be made available for parents to access the Internet and see the advantaged of using the web with children in school.

The Middlesbrough portal will provide access to resources and information to the school staff, parents and the wider community.

Monitoring and review

The speed and nature of technological development is such that a major update should be undertaken at least every two years and any minor updates as necessary. Updates will be undertaken by the ICT Co-ordinator in consultation with staff, Headteacher and governors.

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