FIRST STEPS: First Priorities for a new ICT Co-ordinator

This article appeared in the journal “ICT for Education”, Summer Term 1 2006, issue 18

The role of the ICT Co-ordinator is without doubt an exciting and fast moving one because of the ever changing nature of technology. It can at the same time be immensely challenging because of the range of responsibilities and sheer size of the role.

Whether you are the newly appointed ICT Co-ordinator in a small or large, primary or secondary school, you have two immediate priorities. One is to identify the school’s current priorities within its ICT strategy. The other is to identify the key people in your school’s senior leadership team who have responsibilities for ICT (these are the people you need to work closely with).

In the early weeks of being in post, it should become clear how actively senior leaders promote and support the effective use of ICT as a whole school development. Recent research from Ofsted’s Embedding ICT in Schools – a dual evaluation exercise (December 2005) found that “the involvement of senior managers, especially the headteacher, was the most critical factor in good ICT leadership. The way in which this was complemented by effective co-ordination of ICT was also critical”.

Your responsibilities

This could seem a very long list! However, gone should be the days when the ICT co-ordinator has responsibility for everything labelled ICT, including changing colleagues’ printer cartridges! You will, however, definitely be responsible for some or all of the following:

    1. Standards and assessment in ICT
    2. Ensuring that all pupils have opportunities to develop their ICT capability in line with national curriculum requirements
    3. Monitoring and evaluating progress and continuity of the ICT curriculum, and agreeing targets, in conjunction with others
    4. Talking to subject leaders and colleagues about when, when not and how to use ICT to support pupils’ learning
    5. Managing the ICT resources, in conjunction with colleagues
    6. Keeping colleagues up to date with new ICT developments and resources
    7. Supporting the professional development of colleagues
    8. Liaising with local schools, the Local Authority and wider communities.

Identifying your first priorities

To enable you to draw up your plan of action, you will need to gather information under the headings of support, resources, planning, continuing professional development (CPD), standards and assessment, and monitoring and evaluation. Here are some questions to help you to get started.

Building a network of support

Find out:

    1. Which colleagues are enthusiastic users of ICT? Work with these colleagues to share ideas and to help to motivate those less enthusiastic and confident.
    2. Do you have a team whose work you co-ordinate and monitor? Is there an ICT Strategy group, overseeing the development and impact of ICT on the work of the whole school, with contributions from a range of staff?
    3. Has the headteacher or senior leadership team attended a Strategic Leadership in ICT (SLICT) programme?
    4. If you work in a secondary school, are all teachers attached to your department ICT specialists, or, more likely to be the case, are some non-specialists? This has clear implications for ensuring uniformity of standards between classes and across year groups.
    5. Do you have a technician, or is there provision for external technical support? Some primary and middle school ICT Co-ordinators still have no technical support. Don’t forget that the key part of your role is to teach, so ask for technical support if you have none. Talk to local, feeder schools and discuss sharing support (this can work very well and make economic sense).
    6. Do you have a thriving liaison or pyramid group that meets regularly and can provide support?
    7. Do you have a Local Authority ICT Team? Many teams run courses specifically for new ICT co-ordinators that cover issues relating to management and co-ordination, planning, assessment and resources etc. They can also put you in touch with colleagues in a similar situation, with Advanced Skills Teachers (ASTs), ICT network groups, and other external ICT training provider consultants.

Resources

In the national arena, there has been a recent shift of emphasis from ICT resources to the ways in which schools use them to enhance teaching and learning. However, if the school has unreliable, inappropriate hardware, or a lack of it, and uninspiring software, ICT will be at best an occasional add-on, and pupils will have inexcusably poor opportunities to exploit the power of technology in terms of their learning. One of your first tasks will be to get an overview of the ICT infrastructure of the school, including equipment, communications, network facilities and learning environments.

Find out:

    1. Is there a regular audit of hardware, software and related resources?
    2. Is there a strategy and a rolling programme for replacement, agreed with governors, as part of the school improvement plan?
    3. Do you have an ICT budget? How much is in it? What do you have to fund from it (new hardware, software, consumables like printer inks, paper etc.)?
    4. Are ICT resources distributed and timetabled to ensure that all pupils have access to meet their needs, including extra-curricular activities?
    5. Is there a cupboard full of software that no-one knows about (they exist!)? Has the school used, or planned to use, its quota of eLearning Credits (eLCs)? Is there a system in place by which staff can request software?
    6. Do ICT resources enable administrative and management functions to be implemented, including communication with parents and governors, and reducing teacher workload?
    7. Does the school maintain a secure internet connection filtered for school use, anti virus software, back up systems for administrative systems?

Planning and schemes of work

Reading the school improvement plan will reveal whether the school has a clear vision and strategy showing how ICT will support management, and teaching and learning.

Find out:

    1. Is there a policy that shares the vision of ICT in the school?
    2. Are there schemes of work for ICT, and are they being implemented? Are they reviewed regularly? Are the QCA schemes, or the KS3 Strategy framework and sample teaching units for ICT, used as a basis for planning?
    3. Is there an audit of ICT use across the curriculum? Do other subject leaders have clear priorities on how the use of ICT in their curriculum will be developed? Are opportunities for using ICT clearly identified and planned through all subjects of work? Are the plans being implemented?
    4. What courses are on offer to students, and what access do they have to independent learning?
    5. Are health and safety measures in place, in line with requirements (check out your Local Authority website: many have policies available, including internet safety policies)?
    6. Has the school been awarded the Naacemark, or involved in the new Naace/Becta ICT Mark? An intrinsic part of this ICT quality mark is self review, based on specific criteria, to provide a benchmark leading to future development.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

Recent Ofsted findings point to pupils still having insufficient opportunities to develop their ICT capability across the curriculum, and to the effective use of ICT varying enormously between schools and across departments within schools. It is clear that, despite recent ICT initiatives, the “when, when not and how to use ICT effectively” still remains a major issue for many schools. In order to make progress towards embedding ICT and building capacity for future improvement, your school needs to have a programme of support tailored to need following self review.

Find out:

    1. Is there a whole school commitment to an ongoing CPD programme for staff, and a clear strategy which reflects the changing nature of ICT? Does staff development make use of internal and external training providers? Is there a coaching or mentoring system in place?
    2. How many of your teachers are confident and competent users of ICT when teaching their scheme of work? Do they regularly teach using a wide range of ICT resources, such as data projectors, laptops, Interactive Whiteboards, digital cameras etc? Do they all have laptops?
    3. Are teaching assistants included, encouraged and supported in developing their ICT expertise? Do they work closely with teachers to prioritise pupils’ ICT needs?

Standards, assessment and monitoring

There should be a clear process for monitoring standards of pupils’ work and teaching when ICT is being used, for providing feedback, and identifying future areas for improvement. If not, you will need to agree a monitoring schedule. Analyse recent and current pupil data and observe at first hand how pupils are using ICT in the classroom.

Find out:

    1. Is ICT work regularly moderated?
    2. Does pupil attainment meet or exceed national expectations? Does attainment reflect pupil performance in other core subjects?
    3. Who assesses ICT? Are class/subject teachers involved? How many teachers have a clear understanding of the ICT National Curriculum levels?
    4. Are there assessment strategies to support pupils’ learning? Does the school have a paper based or electronic portfolio to support judgements of progress and attainment?
    5. Are systems in place to record and analyse pupil level data?
    6. Are pupils enthusiastic and motivated when they use ICT? Does the subject content challenge them and are they engaged in higher order thinking skills? Are they given opportunities to achieve at the higher levels?

First “next steps”

So where do you start? In these first stages, you are clearly on an information gathering exercise. The result will enable you to identify the key priorities to move ICT on to the next stage in its development. Keep your priorities to a minimum (try not to have more than three, and make sure that they are manageable). You may find it useful to use these questions as a checklist as part of your review and to help you to identify possible actions. The websites listed below provide links to other useful guidance and support materials.

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Useful websites

http://schools.becta.org.uk/ - Becta’s practical help and advice, resources and ideas, including roles and responsibilities, health and safety, inspection and review

http://schools.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=lp – school leadership, including self review framework and ICT Mark

www.ncsl.org.uk/slict - Strategic Leadership of ICT (SLICT), the National College for School Leadership/Becta programme designed for head teachers. See also teamSLICT for secondary senior leadership teams

www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary – the Primary Standards Site includes resources, information, video clips, and lesson plans

www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/keystage3 - the Secondary Standards Site includes guidance, resources and downloadable units of work

www.qca.org.uk/2812.html – the National Curriculum Online website provides programmes of study for each national curriculum subject and support materials

www.ncaction.org.uk – the National Curriculum in Action website has guidance and materials to support the teaching and assessment of ICT across the curriculum, including examples of pupils’ work alongside commentaries

www.curriculumonline.gov.uk – Curriculum Online, the catalogue of multimedia resources linked to subjects that schools can buy with their eLearning Credits (eLCs)

www.naace.org.uk – Naace is the professional association for those working
in ICT in Education. See their website for information about Naacemark for schools, and for guidance and support materials

http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/ - teachernet, news, research, teachers’tv, practical ideas and support

www.teacherxpress.com – a directory of useful web addresses designed to help busy teachers and organised according to their popularity