Academic : ICT

ICT has changed beyond all recognition in recent years and the Department has worked hard to embrace these advances. The use of ICT is based around two main teaching rooms, a Prep School suite and further workstations in Form rooms, the Sixth Form Centre and in the Library. There are also dedicated graphics machines in the Art department and a selection of both PC-based laptops and Apple Macs. A brand new digital Language Laboratory was launched in September 2009.

The network runs a wide range of applications and has filtered Internet access. Limited access is available for girls to access documents from home and this system will be improved in the near future.

The ICT Department, whilst providing facilities and support for all curriculum subjects, aims to ensure that girls become confident and competent users of ICT. Girls are taught to use ICT in the solution to a wide range of problems within many other areas of the curriculum, covering mainstream and specialist software and effective use of research strategies on the Internet. These are designed to provide a foundation for the use of ICT tools in supporting both academic learning and to enhance living in the 21st Century.

Year 7 girls are taught how to get the best from the school network, familiarity with standard office software, safe Internet skills, simple control, typing skills and some elements of HTML coding. There is an end of year examination.

Year 8 girls are introduced to a range of open source software, extending knowledge of what is available within office packages, photo-manipulation, more complex control and the production of a short movie to teach a wider range of e-safety concepts.

Year 9 girls tackle complex aspects of databases and spreadsheets, use presentational styles to enhance documents, learn about web authoring packages and, from 2010, will be investigating the role of computer games in learning control and programming techniques.

Homework is only rarely set and would usually require the assembly of materials/rough notes in preparation for a task. Extended tasks in Years 8 & 9 are assessed against a Task Sheet outlining desired outcomes.