Shelley College: ICT

Head of Department: Mr D Emsley  

ICT is going to have a massive impact on the lives of students as they become adults in the Information Age. As a subject area we are aware of the massive responsibility to educate them not only in the skills they need NOW but to prepare them to develop as adults and provide them with the skills to be able to adapt to the ever changing technologies which are becoming so ready, cheaply and easily available.

Whether it be for work, education or leisure ICT is a core element in our 21st Century society and students need to develop the skills to use it, master it and make the technology work for them. These are the aims of the ICT department at Shelley College.

Courses Offered
We intend that all students will leave Shelley College with at least the equivalent of one GCSE in ICT. To this end we offer a course which is structured and allows students to enter it at all levels and achieve either 1, 2, 3 or 4 GCSEs through taking a combination of units.

Key Stage 3
At Key Stage 3 the course is a foundation to the GCSE and will form one of the units towards their GCSE. The work involves analysing a number of websites and critically assessing their usability, accessibility, design and style. This knowledge is then taken further and a website developed to meet a client’s specification. The software used is the same as is currently used in the website design industry – DreamWeaver, PhotoShop and Flash.

Key Stage 4
At Key Stage 4 all students undertake the core unit gaining them 1 GCSE. However students can opt for the 2 GCSE equivalent AWARD or the 4 GCSE equivalent CERTIFICATE. This will allocate them further time to study in greater depth. The students will then work on units which meet their individual interests from, for example:
Video Editing, Sound Editing, Animation for the Web, Graphics Design, Desktop Publishing, MultiMedia Products, Database Design and Use Spreadsheet Design and Use.

Key Stage 5
We offer two different courses at A level – Applied ICT and Computing. These two courses are very different and are aimed at entirely different types of students – although there is some overlap and some students do take both.

The department is proud of the courses we offer and of the students who have taken them.  We have had a 100% pass rate since starting delivering the course. We also achieve some of the best results in the local area for both Applied ICT and Computing.

Computing
Grades	Greenhead College	Shelley College
A-B	33%	33%
A-C	56%	67%
A-E	89%	100%

Applied ICT
Grades	Greenhead College	Shelley College
A-B	31%	67%
A-C	53%	78%
A-E	91%	100%

This is due to the commitment of the students and the quality of the teaching staff within the department.

Applied ICT
Applied ICT is a course designed to allow students to study and critically analyse the uses to which ICT is being put in the 21st Century. They will identify and evaluate a number of different uses of the internet and present their research and conclusions in an e-book.

They will analyse a commercial, transactional website looking at how the company deals with customers and protects their valuable data. They will study in depth the uses and techniques required for a company to organise it’s data to become more effective or efficient and hence more profitable. At A2 students undertake a large Multimedia project designed for a particular end user. Some examples in the past have been for businesses or for teachers in the school to use with classes.

Computing
Computing is very different from Applied ICT although there are overlaps. Students who wish to find out how computers work and make them do things they want them to do will enjoy computing. It is taught using a problem solving approach and problems are analysed and solutions created.  At AS level a board set assignment is provided that students must analyse and produce a program to solve.

At A2 students must write a program for a specific end user – examples currently in development include: Managing the requests for printing in the school photocopying room, online booking system for a Bouncy Castle company, and a system for managing the school PB system.

The students currently studying AS Computing have benefitted from the support of Postcode.org.uk who have provided some postcode and distances data to assist with their project work this year.