Clifton College Website

ICT (Information and Communication Technology)

ICT at Clifton is a high priority, both as a subject within its own right and as an educational resource for all subjects. A state of the art network of some 400 PC's place ICT at the heart of the teaching and learning across the whole College.

Head of Academic ICT
Dr Darron Dean MA PhD
Director of Office Services
Mr Colin Lewis BSc
Network Manager
Dr Don Shapland BSc PhD

Resources

The College has a state of the art network of some 400 PC's, linking machines over 40 buildings using high speed fibre-based technology. Broadband filtered Internet access is available across the campus, and every student has an email address.

All Classrooms have network points, as do all House libraries and many pupil studies. The newly refurbished Percival Library has some 40 network points where students can plug in their laptops.

ICT across the curriculum

All subjects use ICT in their teaching. An ICT representative in each department ensures that the technology enhances the teaching, and that students ICT skills are developed as a result. Through this, students are taught how to use the Internet as a research medium and how to store and analyse information using databases and spreadsheets. In subjects such as Art and Music students use ICT to synthesise their work. All GCSE and A-level coursework is presented using ICT, through which students learn how to bring together information of different types effectively.

Teaching

Teaching Ethos

The purpose of teaching ICT is to ensure all pupils at Clifton have a high level of ICT skills to enable them to use ICT effectively and productively across the curriculum and in their daily lives. To this end, all Third Form students, and those joining the College in the Sixth Form, have one lesson of discrete ICT a week for the whole year. AS Computing is offered in the Sixth Form to students wishing to broaden their skills and knowledge of ICT. It is usually taken in addition to four other AS subjects.

Intermediate BTEC (Online)

ICT forms an essential part of the Third Form curriculum. All pupils undergo a course of study aimed at achieving the Level 2 BTEC Award in ICT, which has been designed specifically to meet the needs of senior school pupils in international and independent schools. The course has three parts, which develop and assess skills in all the applications (such as word processing, spreadsheets), students will require during their academic career:

Unit 1: Presenting information
Unit 2: Information handling
Unit 3: Applying ICT

Teaching is supplemented by interactive courseware that is available to students across the whole campus. The course is assessed by a combination of online examinations, and the submission of a portfolio of work which will include projects undertaken in subjects other than ICT to demonstrate that students can apply their ICT skills and knowledge effectively.

AS Computing

AS Computing (AQA) is available for students with a particular interest in computing, and who want to learn more about computer systems, programming, and develop an in-depth understanding of some applications. It will provide an insight into what is involved in reading Computer Science at university, but will also develop skills that are highly prized in many IT-focused business and industrial sectors.

The course consists of three units:

Unit 1: Computer Systems, Programming and Network Concepts
Unit 2: Principles of Hardware, Software and Applications
Unit 3: Practical Systems Development

Each Unit involves a written exam of one and a half hours. Units 1 and 2 are taken in the Lower Sixth, with the remaining unit taken in the first term of the Upper Sixth.