Being acquainted in ICT is vital for students in order to participate in a promptly changing world driven by the fast growing information and communication revolution together with the tremendous capabilities of new technologies. Thus our school is determined to provide appropriate, fully integrated, functional and supported ICT resources in order to offer the highest level of education to all students together with the efficient support to teachers and staff members to enhance their performances in this subject.

Our aims are to:

• Enable children to become autonomous, users of ICT, gaining confidence and enjoyment from their ICT activities;

• Develop a whole school approach to wisely using ICT by ensuring continuity and progression in all strands of the ICT National Curriculum;

• Use ICT as a tool to support teaching, learning and management across the curriculum
• Provide students with opportunities to develop their ICT capabilities in all areas;

• Ensure ICT is used, to improve access to learning for pupils with different learning styles and a diverse range of individual needs.

Our Objectives

To achieve these aims we propose:

• raising teacher awareness and understanding of ICT 11-16, and make sure that their skills and knowledge are kept up to date, so that ICT experiences are focussed to enhance learning,

• Ensure that the National Curriculum level descriptions and attainment targets are given appropriate coverage,

• sharing strategies for teaching ICT, so that cross curricular links are used wherever appropriate,

• devise schemes of work to ensure the systematic progression through key stages 3 and 4
• evaluate our use of hardware and software and make sure that all students have access to a range of ICT resources and equipment that are kept up to date as much as possible,

• evaluate and monitor students’ experiences
  

Curriculum Guides

Once a term a class will work on completing two/three units of work based on the Strategy Teaching Units for KS3. (This will be the objectives not necessarily the activities listed.)

At key stage 4, we provide the Edexcel’s new set of qualifications -DiDA (Diploma in Digital  Application). It is a a paperless qualification for the 21 st Century. All students enter for two unites and gain a certificate in digital Applicat  ion (CiDA) at the end of year 11.  claiming the diploma is optional. 

ICT is assessed both formatively and summatively using the Framework for ICT teaching and learning, the QCA scheme of work for ICT and the National Strategy Teaching Units (NSTU’s).
Activities are planned at the end of each of all the units of work which enable summative assessments to take place where student’s ICT capability is assessed according to the level descriptors for Key stage 3 and the Edexcel mark scheme for Key stage 4. This work is accompanied by a description of the context in which pupils completed the task and how it was undertaken.

Internet Safety

Although the Islamia school offers a safe online environment through filtered internet access we recognise the importance of teaching our students about online safety and their responsibilities when using communication technology, as well as setting out regulations that all users should comply to.
This topic is also covered as part of our PSHE provision in key stage 3 during Tutorials.

A summary sheet is used to record details of the assessment activity along with comments by the teacher if necessary as well a highlighted end of unit expectation statement.
We aim to build on this process by developing and maintaining electronic portfolios of pupils work, holding moderation meetings and using the summative assessments to assign levels to students work at the end of each key stage to be used for tracking and monitoring their progress.

Learning Out of School Hours

A computer club operates after school on a weekly basis. We believe this access to ICT out of school hours:

• Increases the time our students spend learning
• Increases access to ICT especially for those without a computer at home
• Enables some students to develop and extend personal hobbies and interests
• Develops ICT capability; potentially raising self esteem, motivation and standards of achievement.