I started at Holyrood in Easter 2006 so I
have just completed my first whole year here and I feel that I have found my
feet, made a significant impact on the way ICT is presented and made about
1400 new friends (including the staff).
Curriculum Changes
Year 7
now has an entirely new schedule of work with all new units of work that are
designed to keep young minds interested in ICT. Through their first year at
Holyrood students will still learn about the ICT basics (Word Processing,
Presentations, Website Development, Spreadsheets and Databases) but the
topics that they cover seem more exciting, for example we offer units of
work on Mr Men, Pirates and Dinosaurs.
Year 8
has also been totally changed. Now year 8’s develop their knowledge from
year 7 and complete two related but distinct projects through the year which
we hope will give them a deeper understanding of how ICT is used in the real
world. The first project is called “The Band” where students make up a new
band, come up with a name and a logo for the band, design a CD cover and
produce a Radio Advert to advertise the new album. Next the students are
asked to produce a website to advertise the band’s upcoming tour and finally
they set up a database for the fan club. The second project is called “Chard
Farm Festival” where the students are asked to design a programme for the
Local Music event, produce a spreadsheet to determine how much money the
event is going to cost (or hopefully make), next they produce a control
program that will manage the car park and finally they produce a
presentation to convince the town council that this event is a good idea.
Year 9
now start the year by completing a Database Project called “CSI” where they
are asked to produce a fully working database solution to help the local
Police crack crimes. This takes up half of the year’s work and is meant to
prepare them for the GCSE that we offer to all students as a core subject in
Year 10. The second half of the year is made up of a Movie Making project
that is meant to inspire the more creative ICT users in the year and is also
meant to prepare them for the Certificate in Digital Applications (a new
course that we offer to students who would like to take ICT as an option in
Year 10.
Year 10 and 11
students can now either complete the GCSE
Short Course as a core subject (so all students do this) or they can opt to
complete the Certificate in Digital Applications (or CiDA) which is worth
two GCSE’s. The GCSE we offer at the moment is made up of a single Database
Project for the coursework and a single Exam that is sat at the end of Year
11.
Any students in Year 10 who decided to take
ICT as an option at the end of year 9 are currently studying for the
Certificate in Digital Applications (or CiDA). This is also a new
qualification at Holyrood and I hope that it will be a success. The students
who are currently studying for this course certainly seem to enjoy the work
and I am confident that their grades will reflect this. The content of this
new course is more in line with current uses of ICT as students are expected
to complete several ICT tasks and then demonstrate their skills in an
”e-portfolio”. In year 11 these student will go on to complete a unit on
Multi-Media where they will be asked to film and edit a digital movie, add a
soundtrack and use animation to produce a truly “Multi-Media” presentation.
6th Form
ICT is going through some changes at the moment. The current Year 12 and 13
are completing the same A-Level that Holyrood have offered for quite some
time. From September though, the A-Level qualifications are going to change
so we will soon offer a much more creative course. Students will still be
awarded an AS in Year 12 and a full A-Level in Year 13, but the coursework
has a much more creative feel during the AS and is equally rewarding in Year
13. Further to this, the new specification only has one Examination at the
end of each year instead of two.
As you can see, the ICT department is a
constantly growing and changing department at Holyrood
Community School. This year’s
GCSE and A-Level results were very pleasing and now all of the courses we
offer are oversubscribed which I believe is a reflection of the way ICT is
perceived in the school as much as it is a reflection of the Teachers’ hard
work and perseverance.
