I.C.T.

At Alder we have invested heavily in ICT, with all classrooms having an interactive whiteboard and 6 ICT suites. Our ICT facilities are a distinctive feature and a real strength of the school. This was confirmed by our OFSTED report, which stated that our modern resources along with staff enthusiasm and expertise had helped all students to become capable users of information and communication technology. Both the ICT department and cross-curricular ICT going on across all other departments are rated as very good.

The school has developed a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) that students can log in to and access interactive resources(questionnaires, activities, competitions, video clips, tests, wikis, and quizzes). Many of these resources are produced by our own teachers to support the schemes of work the students follow. Students can then upload their own work for marking online.

At KS4 a forum is available through the VLE so students can contact their teacher from home so they can receive support outside school and ICT club hours.

Key Stage 3

At key stage 3 all pupils are set according to ability and work is differentiated to cater for this. All pupils are completing units of work that follow the requirements of the National ICT Strategy. These units help to develop capability in ICT where students can gain skills in the industry standard software we have bought and can choose when and how to use them to solve problems for specific purposes and audiences. In year 7 & 8 students undertake an induction unit and then complete units of work based around the National Strategy. In Year 9, students prepare for their Functional Skills ICT exam in January. Once their exam is finished they complete a project with focuses on Personal Learning and Thinking Skills through ICT. Many lessons are structured and available online through the school website and are supported by additional activities through the VLE.

Key Stage 4 – OCR Nationals

The OCR Level 2 Nationals in ICT have been developed to recognise learners' skills, knowledge and understanding of Information and Communication Technology functions, environments and operations. The units undertaken are as shown below:

Skills for business

Preparing graphics and audio for the web

Website Design

Spreadsheets

Databases

Students can achieve Pass, Merit, Distinction or Distinction* grades. A Pass is equivalent to a GCSE grade C, Merit B, Distinction A and Distinction* A*. The majority of students are able to achieve a double award GCSE in ICT by completing added units of work.

Oracle

As art of our Gifted and Talented programme we are able to offer the Oracle Academy qualification to targeted Year 10 Students.

Oracle is the worlds leading database company and is used by the worlds major online companies to store, manage and retrieve information that is the core of their business. Both Amazon and Google use Oracle. Oracle is the second most profitable software company in the world, behind Microsoft. Jobs in this field are very well paid! The qualification the students undertake can lead towards an A Level equivalent grade and gain UCAS points to help entry to university. Students gain an insight into how major businesses operate and learn programming techniques for SQL and P/SQL which are database programming languages.