SBT 1

I am pleased to see that the children in my SBT school do have a wonderful ICT system set up. I am in a really big school which has numerous ICT suites, PC stations in corridors, IWB's in all classrooms and a number of other ICT facilities. How much use the children get of ICT in this school really does depend on how their teacher regards it as a learning tool. My class have 50 minutes of ICT timetabled into their week and during this time they are taught ICT skills, i.e: how to use a spreadsheet, database, word, paint programme... I have observed a couple of these sessions and find them quite prescriptive, however. There are many opportunities for the children to use ICT at this school - although, some of it is up to them to instigate, for example by joining the ICT club or commenting on the school blog. They also have an intranet facility, whereby parents can access information about the school regarding trips, upcoming events and even review the homework tasks that their children have been set.

Children get taught 'subjects' in this school. There are over 600 pupils on the roll and in my year (yr 5) group there are 6 classes divided up into 8 sets based on attainment level. As a result of this, the children get a 50 minute subject on maths, english, geography, history... and the list goes on. There are occasional double lessons for art, science and PE. In addition, each subject is taught by a different teacher and as a result of this, I have found that the focus of the lesson is more often than not, the subject itself, rather than ICT. So, whether ICT is used during the subject depends very much on what resources the teacher has with them and how confident they are using them with the children.

In this style school, ICT seems to take a back seat during some lessons and I have not seen it incorporated into lessons in the cross curricula way that I expected to if teaching were topic based, rather than subject based. But, then I can understand why... moving the children around the school to ICT suites is time consuming and then giving them the instruction and setting them on task takes up most of the lesson. It is also a big school, which means there is always competition for the ICT suites!