ICT Department Aims and Objectives

The Secondary ICT department at JESS aims to provide

• students with the necessary skills and provisions to use ICT in all aspects of their daily lives and work
• students with the option to study ICT / Computing as a subject in its own right at either GCSE or IB level
• teaching staff with the necessary ICT skills and provisions to enhance and improve teaching and learning through use of ICT (software & hardware)

ICT is delivered to students in a variety of ways throughout the school. In the Secondary school, ICT is taught as a discrete subject at KS3 (one 55 minutes lesson per week) and is an optional subject at KS4 (GCSE) and KS5 (IB). The ICT provisions for Secondary are reviewed and adapted on a regular basis to ensure provisions are of the highest quality for our students.

All departments within the school recognise that they have a part to play in the successful delivery of ICT experiences. It is intended that students will additionally learn about ICT by using ICT across the curriculum in enriching and enhancing their learning.

Department Facilities
The Secondary ICT department has three dedicated computer labs for teaching, one of which is primarily used by the ADT department (Art, Design & Technology) to deliver Graphics (Illustrator / 2D Design).

All labs are fitted with a teacher’s machine, 22 student workstations, an interactive whiteboard (which use Interwrite and Easiteach software) and a data projector.

The school runs a wireless and cabled high speed RM CC3 (Connectivity Connect 3) network, running Windows 2003 server and Windows XP clients. There are many standard applications installed on the network for all students to use such as Office 2007 Professional and Adobe CS3 (Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Illustrator), as well as departmental specific software such as Flowol, Scratch and Blender.

All secondary students have access to e-mail through Microsoft Outlook which they can use to e-mail work between home and school. Internet access is provided for all students for work related activities and internet access is recorded and reviewed daily. The department is in the process of developing the school’s VLE (Virtual Learning Environment) using RM Kaleidos.

Network Security and Integrity
All students are provided with a network account which is protected by a password known only to them. All users are required to save school data to the network, as network files are backed-up on a daily basis.

In Year 7 students are asked to sign the school IT AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) and are taught about acceptable computer use during ICT lessons. Student activity on the network in Secondary is monitored by Zenguard and Ishield. Violations are dealt with by the ICT staff.

Anti-virus software is installed which automatically checks for viruses on external devices ‘plugged’ into the network. Staff and students are asked to be vigilant when transferring information between home and school and it is an expectation that home computers used for school work have up-to-date anti-virus software installed.

Extra Curricular Activities
The department aims to provide extracurricular activities to enhance and develop students ICT skills and capability. Example activities offered and delivered by the ICT department are:

• After school support workshops for ICT GCSE / IB students
• Digital Photography
• Computer Gaming (using scratch and blender)
• The Buzz (The school’s No.1 favourite weekly Radio/TV show)