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Barbara Hitchcox, secondary ICT consultant, continues her series on CC4G, by looking at how it is being successfully run at Burford School.
| CC4G – Computer Clubs for Girls is now
well established and thriving at Burford School. The Secondary Consultant
responsible for promoting the club across the county went along to see how
they were getting on.
The club is held regularly on Mondays, after school at a time when buses run late for other after school activities as well, making it possible for those students who live further afield to join in. Fay Harold, the facilitator of the club became involved following a presentation attended by Andrew Wilson the school’s ICT co-ordinator at the Secondary ICT Conference at Cricket Road last summer. |
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Establishing the club was a simple affair according to Fay – the application was completed online through the CC4G website and once a couple of follow-up telephone conversations with the national organisers had taken place, the club was up and running. The sessions are run by 6th formers Katy, Hannah and Chloe with Fay taking more of a back-stage role, offering them support and discussing links with the taught ICT syllabus to help them to choose what to cover in the club sessions.
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The club started with students from year
7 and this year intends to extend membership to students from year 8. Fay
believes that the club provides the members with the chance to reinforce
and re-visit ideas from the taught ICT lessons and says that this can be
done in a supportive and less formal atmosphere. As a result several
students appear to be developing greater confidence to attempt more
challenging extension tasks whilst other students who lacked confidence and
basic skills appear to be empowered to participate in lessons in a more
confident manner. Katy, Hannah and Chloe, are enthusiastic 6th form team leaders who joined for different reasons, either as part of the extension programme for 6th form students or as part of the ‘Community Service’ section for their Duke of Edinburgh’s Gold Award. |
Their responsibilities include planning and leading each session for the year 7 girls who have joined CC4G, with support from Fay where necessary. They take it in turns to plan what to cover in each weekly session and share the role of supporting and guiding the participants. Planning each session takes about 30 minutes and Fay supports them in deciding how to link the sessions to what is being taught in the KS3 ICT lessons. The 6th formers’ enthusiasm is obvious and they say that they find it very rewarding to see the girls showing such eagerness and making progress week after week. Their register shows that over 80% of the girls have attended all sessions and now that the club is in its third term, news is spreading and new members are joining.
| The sessions focus on a wide variety of
topics supported by the materials on the CC4G website which Katy, Hannah
and Chloe say is easy to use and which the club members enjoy exploring on
their own. They supplement the materials with aspects of their own
learning from KS3 and 4 using other applications for activities such as the
very popular printed labels to go on Christmas presents in a session at
Christmas time. They believe that the club seems to be helping the
members to be more confident when they use a computer enabling them to use
their new skills across the curriculum. The year 7 members themselves were keen to talk about the club, explaining that they first found out about it when Katy, Hannah and Chloe came into their year 7 assembly to promote it. They also put posters on the year 7 notice board and sent leaflets to form tutors. |
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Most said they joined at the start or in October. Some joined later because they heard it was fun. They were attracted to the club when friends suggested that they give it a try. They like the fact that they have more time to get things done in the 1 hour 30 minutes than they do in a 50 minute ICT lesson. The students have particularly enjoyed using some of the fun CC4G web activities in conjunction with presentation software, desk top publishing and spreadsheets for activities which link to their ICT lessons. When asked which activity she had most enjoyed, one student replied, “I liked using my skills to create a PowerPoint presentation about animals”, and when asked about increasing confidence another said, “Yes, I feel much more confident and now want to take part and share my ideas in ICT lessons.” |
