ICT strategy
ICT for Learning Strategy 2009-2014
Introduction
The DCSF are driving forward the use of Information and Communications Technology to assist schools in raising achievement. Guidance and funding are provided by the Harnessing Technology strategy, Building Schools for the Future and the Management Information Frameworks. North Lincolnshire Council has created this document to provide a road map to discuss with schools on how we can jointly achieve the challenges presented by these developments.
Vision Statement
Technologies, services and solutions will be used in a single integrated environment by all learners, parents, school leaders, teachers, governors, local authority teams and schools’ support staff.
Entitlements / Expectations
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Will promote social interaction and collaborative working through inclusive and innovative approaches to learning.
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It will free learners to access high quality teaching materials and resources so that they can study at any time and anywhere in a safe and secure environment.
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ICT will enable work to be produced, submitted and marked electronically and empower users to track their own progress and set their own goals.
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It will empower parents to engage with their child’s learning and celebrate the successes and progress of their children.
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Technology such as video conferencing will enable learners to engage with specialist teachers across the learning campus without the need to travel to different locations.
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ICT ensures all learners can access their entitlement to an education regardless of their needs, disabilities, ethnicity or ability to attend a school (e.g. through illness).
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will ensure that all staff are motivated and personally skilled in the use of ICT in a culture of continuous development of ICT skills and an awareness of technological developments.
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Teachers will have access to a wide range of multimedia and digital resources and will have the ability to create, amend and adapt existing resources.
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Teachers will be able to utilise ICT in a wide range of learning spaces within the school and with a variety of different group sizes.
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Teachers and learners will be able to collaborate and share resources without having to travel between sites at a time that is convenient for them.
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ICT will support planning and monitoring for groups and individuals and will offer new opportunities for assessment of pupils progress.
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will provide data around the learner that ensures that the provision of information for decision making and performance monitoring is not a burden to schools but is available to staff on demand. This will ensuring that the time preparing for Schools Self Evaluation, OfSted inspections, Pupil Tracking, Financial planning and discussions with parents and children is minimised and the discussions maximised.
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Teachers and parents will have real-time access to achievement and target setting data for individuals including attendance and behaviour information.
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The easy access to data will enable the school to be able to work more efficiently with their School Improvement Partner.
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School leadership teams and governers will drive these developments forward within their schools.
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Will provide safe and secure environments for pupils to learn and develop.
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Constantly updating services, advice, policies and codes of conduct will support the use of the technology in a regularly changing interactive world.
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The security of data is a high priority across the Children’s Trust and the solutions and services supporting the campus for learning will ensure that data and information is only available to the individuals entitled to access it.
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Schools will be able to access the Government’s safeguarding tools supported by the Improving Information Sharing and Management programme (i.e ContactPoint, eCAF)
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Will provide the solutions and services to ensure that schools can record, maintain and deliver the required data to the council and government in a secure environment.
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Schools data will feed the Council’s central pupil database to enable service to maximise the support provided and continue to reduce the burden on schools to provide data to external services individually (including ContactPoint).
- Will provide easy access to information on pupils’s progress, attendance, achievements and behaviour. This will enable parents to discuss learning, the school day and future needs with their child and school without waiting for school parent’s evenings.
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Bloggs, photos and video clips will keep the parent in touch with their child when on school trips or participating in projects.
Information and communication technologies (ICT), and online systems and resources in schools, will provide greater flexibility for learners at school and at home. They will also help school leaders, teachers, support staff, other professionals, parents and pupils to communicate and share information and resources, and to find out about local and national services and support available to pupils and parents.
Your child, your schools, our future: building a 21st century schools system
Supporting Initiatives
Harnessing Technology
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Development of an e-confident system where parents, children, teachers and school leadership are fully aware of the benefits and requirements to use the new technologies to support raising achievement, school improvement and safe guarding.
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The use of technology to communicate proactively and timely with parents so they have realtime access to information about their child.
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How schools and local authorities can evaluate the development of ICT within their schools.
Building Schools for the Future (BSF) and The Primary Capital Programme
The new Parent Guarantee will also ensure parents have information on their child’s behaviour, attendance, SEN, progress and attainment online in secondary schools by 2010 and in primary schools by 2012.
Curriculum Transformation
All maintained schools must meet the minimum requirements of the National Curriculum and they are free to plan their curriculum in the way they consider to be most suitable for their learners.
14-19 Developments
Curriculum Developments
The increasing use of technology in all aspects of society makes confident, creative and productive use of ICT an essential skill for life. ICT capability encompasses not only the mastery of technical skills and techniques, but also the understanding to apply these skills purposefully, safely and responsibly in learning, everyday life and employment. ICT capability is fundamental to participation and engagement in modern society. ICT can be used to find, develop, analyse and present information, as well as to model situations and solve problems. ICT enables rapid access to ideas and experiences from a wide range of people, communities and cultures, and allows pupils to collaborate and exchange information on a wide scale. ICT acts as a powerful force for change in society and citizens should have an understanding of the social, ethical, legal and economic implications of its use, including how to use ICT safely and responsibly. Increased capability in the use of ICT supports initiative and independent learning, as pupils are able to make informed judgements about when and where to use ICT to enhance their learning and the quality of their work
- successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve
- confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives
- responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society.
Cross-curriculum dimensions bring the curriculum to life
Primary
The key features of the primary curriculum put forward by the Review are:
- Recognising the continuing importance of subjects and the essential knowledge, skills and understanding they represent.
- Providing a stronger focus on curriculum progression.
- Strengthening the focus on ensuring, that by the age of seven, pupils have a secure grasp of the literacy and numeracy skills they need to make good progress thereafter.
- Strengthening the teaching and learning of ICT to enable them to be independent and confident users of technology by the end of primary education.
- Providing a greater emphasis on personal development through a more integrated and simpler framework for schools.
- Building stronger links between the Early Years Foundation Stage and Key Stage 1, and between Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3. in offering exciting opportunities for learning languages for 7-11 year olds.
North Lincolnshire Schools Causing Concern Policy
Failure to provide adequate resources, staff training or curriculum provision to ensure pupils meet age related expectations in ICT
Safeguarding
Home Access
Access to technology at home benefits learners in a range of different ways:
- Improving learning and achievement
- Motivating and engaging children
- Encouraging independence and creativity
- Connecting learning at school and at home
- Helping parents and carers get more involved.
The government’s vision is to ensure that all pupils in state maintained education in England have the opportunity to have access to computers and internet connectivity for education at home.
The Home Access programme is providing the encouragement and funding to achieve this. Following a successful pilot in Oldham and Suffolk, the programme is being rolled out nationally, initially targeting learners in years 3 to 9. Find out more and get involved.
Becta Home Access, Next Generation Learning
Data Handling
The Cabinet Office report on Data Handling in Government issued in April 2008 has been supported by BECTA publications in 2009.
How we will deliver the Strategy (Activities)
Since the introduction of the National Grid for Learning schools have selected and implemented their own solutions to support school improvement with guidance available from the local authority and BECTA. Whilst this has been successful in some parts, it has provided new management issues for schools to resolve. e.g.
- Every software and hardware supplier has their own contract definitions and support arrangements to be managed.
- The success of a solution often relies on an individual staff members’ knowledge and interest.
- An increasing number of new staff need to be trained and supported
- Systems don’t always interact resulting in manual transfer of data
- System can only be run on a computer within the school or within a set room in the school
These issues are creating barriers to schools using learning technologies essential to delivering the vision for 21st Century Education.
To achieve a campus for learning that promotes our children’s development, continued school improvement whilst ensuring safeguarding. We need to co-ordinate the requirements of learners, educators, local and national governance into a single package consisting of advice, standards, tools, policies and and an integrated backbone of systems.
Governance
The North Lincolnshire Children’s Trust will have an active role in monitoring the ICT for Learning Strategy. The outcomes from implementing the strategy are linked directly in to the Children & Young People’s plan. The following groups will be responsible for delivering and monitoring the strategy.
ICT for Learning Programme Board
Led by a Senior officer from Children’s services together with representation from each school sector, including business management, with key council officers managing ICT services. This Board will take responsibility for the full delivery of the strategy. This was previously called the Schools’ ICT Strategy Group.
Building Schools for the Future Implementation Board
Focus Groups
Schools’ Consortium Meetings
Activity Management
Actions:
BECTA Next Generation Learning
BECTA has provided schools with three self review evaluation tools to support their understanding and implementation of ICT.
1. The Self Review Framework and ICT Mark.
A free online tool to guide schools through the key elements of successfully engaging and managing the development of ICT. This is seen as a key mechanism to help schools identify their existing ICT capacity and results in an action plan leading to the ICT Mark.
2. The Framework for ICT Technical Support(FITS)
A free tool to consider the support requirements to ensure that ICT is embedded and maintained. This helps schools set their expectations of what a technical support service should be providing and can act as a bench mark for existing support services.
3. The Information Management Strategy Framework
A free tool to help schools to make more effective and secure use of their data.
| The Local Authority will.. | The Schools/Governors will… |
| provide dedicated support to any school who wants to engage with the Self Review Framework. | engage with the self review framework with a goal of achieving ICT Mark. |
| provide tailored support for all schools wanting to move forward with the Next Generation Learning programme. | provide ongoing |
Technical Support and the Total Cost of Ownership
Continuing Professional Development (CPD)
Training and development will be combined across the authority into a single integrated package to support school improvement and engagement in new technologies.
| The Local Authority will.. | The Schools/Governors will… | Individuals will… |
| create a single point of access for all training offers and CPD opportunities. | regularly evaluate the training and development needs of their staff and engage with the CPD opportunities as required. | consider their knowledge requirements and discuss their CPD needs with school management. |
| provide bespoke packages to match the needs of individual schools to move forward their adoption and embedding of new technologies. | critically examine their current progress and identify their needs to reach their vision. |
Aligning Support Services and SIP feedback
Schools will go to a single place to engage with support for ICT and related services. Issues picked up in SIP meetings around ICT are passed to a single point of contact for progression.
Central hosting of school’s servers and solutions
Schools transfer their servers and applications to a data farm.
| The Local Authority will.. | The Schools/Governors will… |
| build two new Data Centres. One will host schools MIS and other ‘business’ services. The other will host the Learning Platform and other ‘curriculum’ services. | standardise on a single MIS platform and migrate their existing servers to the Data Centres. |
| provide and manage the security and resilience of this data including a robust backup regime. | ensure that all users of the data comply with relevant guidance and regulation in the use of this data. |
| promote and provide guidance on the safe handling of data and information. | |
| provide secure anywhere, anytime access to this data to authorised personnel. | utilise this data for school improvement and to aide in the personalisation of learning |
| install Partnership Exchange and a Zone Integration Server to facilitate the sharing of pupil data between schools and to enable collegiate timetabling. | standardise on a common set of data items for student behaviour, attendance codes and courses. |
| ensure that schools can meet the 2010 (Secondary) and 2012 (primary) parental reporting requirements as laid out in the 21st Century School Document | ensure that processes are in place to ensure that data is prepared in an agreed LA format so that data can be pulled in a consistent format to the Learning Platform. |
My Learning Spaces (MLS) Learning Platform and Schools Gateway Service
| The Local Authority Will.. | The Schools/Governors will… |
| centrally host the designated Learning Platform in a data centre which will deliver all the requirements of 21st Century School Document. | adopt the designated Learning Platform. |
| integrate the Learning Platform with the MIS servers to allow dynamic flow of data between the two systems. | ensure that data is accurate and up to date |
| provide managed support for the embedding of the designated Learning Platform within teaching and learning and school management. | plan CPD in a targeted manner to ensure the phased adoption of the designated platform. |
| employ 2 e-learning and transformation coaches to work with schools in the implementation of the designated Learning Platform. | identify targeted areas of development. |
| redevelop Teacher Zone within the new platform to continue to provide a secure Web Box environment and continued online subject support. |
Video Conferencing service
| The Local Authority will.. | The Schools/Governors will… |
| project manage, procure and deploy a video conferencing solution that is fully integrated into the Learning Platform for all secondary schools via the LEP. | work with the LEP to identify how they would like to locally install and deliver Video Conferencing and provide access to local support staff. |
e-safety and Safeguarding Training and Support
| The Local Authority will.. | The Schools/Governors will… | Individuals will… |
| Provide guidance and support to schools to support their e-safety and safeguarding requirements. | Ensure policies, procedures and where necessary technology is in place to ensure children are safeguarded from harm when using technology in the school. | Follow policies and procedures as directed by the school management. |
Wide Area Network (WAN) procurement
| The Local Authority will.. | The Schools/Governors will… |
| re-procure a Wide Area Network that is fully compliant with BECTA connectivity standards at 2MB/s synchronous connections for primary schools, 10MB/s or 100MB/s synchronous connections for secondary schools. | adhere to the Acceptable User Policies and agreements linked to the Wide Area Network |
| calculate and aggregate the total costs in a fair and transparent manner. | budget to ensure that the school is financially prepared to cover the costs of connectivity. |
SIMS in the Primary Classroom
| The Local Authority will.. | The Schools/Governors will… | Individuals will… |
| Provide training and support for school to enable staff to access their MIS within the classroom setting. | Ensure the schools computers and networks are maintained at the minimum standard to enable use of the MIS across the school. | Undertake CPD as required to ensure they can maximise the benefits of classroom access to their MIS. |
Pupil Tracking Solutions for Primary Schools
| The Local Authority will.. | The Schools/Governors will… |
| support and maintain the selected tools that will meet the needs of schools through Service Level Agreements. | have an effective tracking system in place and ensure that this information is available to parents as part of a parental engagement strategy. |
Managing Data within Schools
| The Local Authority will.. | The Schools/Governors will… | Individuals will… |
| provide and promote guidance and information on the latest requirements and best practice. Provide appropriate CPD. | consider the guidance and implement as appropriate | follow the schools guidance and policies as required. |
| provide a Data handling advice services to work with schools to raise awareness of BECTA data handling advice and best practice. |
Home Access
| The Local Authority will.. | The Schools will… |
| raise awareness with schools of the Home Access offer and ensure schools can communicate this to parents. | communicate to parents the eligibility factors of the scheme and what benefits taking part will bring and encourage participation. |
| work with across council agencies to capitalise on the opportunities that this initiative provides. | encourage participation in extended opportunities. |
Communication and Reporting
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Communicating and selling the Strategy Vision to schools, council staff and suppliers
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Obtaining buy-in and financial support from the targeted parties
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Ensuring allocated resources and advisory agents (Schools Improvement Partners, consultants etc) to schools understand and promote the vision.
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Outlying the main activities and the programme timescales
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Reporting on activity progress formally to the Board and Steering Groups
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Reporting on activity progress against the vision to all i nterested parties
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Teacherzone- an online communication media
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The Council website
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A termly newsletter to interested parties including Council staff
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Existing BSF communication plans
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Minutes of key groups shared at Schools Forum
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Feedback to Administration Meetings
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Agenda items on SMT and service team meetings
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Video media
A single website will be setup to provide a one stop location for schools to obtain and monitor the strategies progress.