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Each year, primary teachers provide useful feedback on their pupils’ ICT experiences. Here, Greg Stragnell, shares with us some headline figures.
Every summer term teachers of pupils in years 2, 4 and 6 kindly return to us a summary of the ICT activities which their pupils have had opportunities in during the year as well as an informal indication of the proportion of pupils who can successfully complete such tasks. This is a very informal survey and is not an ICT assessment. Teachers of Year 6 separately provide their end of Key Stage 2 teacher assessment for pupils’ ICT Capability which gets passed to secondary schools and about which Julie Leigh wrote in the last Ox-On-Line. This survey is, rather, simply an indication of the types of activities pupils have experienced in ICT during the year along with an approximate figure for the proportion of pupils who successfully completed each task.
Even though this return is informal and unscientific, it does provide us with valuable information. It enables us to identify trends in pupils’ experiences and, where necessary, respond with targeted support and additional resources. The survey helps us to identify areas of the ICT curriculum which significant numbers of pupils may not be receiving and the ability to compare returns from previous years allows us to identify areas where pupils’ opportunities have perhaps diminished.
This year’s survey once again provides an interesting snapshot of pupils’ ICT experiences in primary schools. Where previous years have seen a steady increase in most aspects of pupils’ ICT experiences (and this trend continues in many areas), this year there have been some “dips” in some areas of the ICT curriculum.
One of the most significant reductions in experiences was in Year 4 in the Modelling strand of the ICT curriculum. Last year 72% of Year 4 pupils were able to successfully explore a simple simulation whereas this year the figure had dropped to 52%. Clearly this is not an indication that the pupils concerned were any less capable of exploring a simple simulation but rather that considerably more pupils had simply not been offered that as an opportunity in their ICT curriculum over the past year. This is perhaps not altogether surprising given the way in which ICT continues to develop and the other opportunities which exist. However, the opportunity to explore simple models provides useful building blocks in developing pupils’ capability to develop models of their own using spreadsheets and other modelling software.
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Also, as schools renew their ICT equipment and networks,
they may find that they no longer have access to simple modelling
applications which perhaps previously were available as CD ROMs on the
system. There are, of course, increasing numbers of simple modelling
applications online and these can usefully be used to develop those
modelling concepts which pupils need.
There are also some older applications which have stood the test of time in this area, perhaps most notably Model Shop which is produced by Sherston Software and provides eight interactive computer models, designed specifically to develop children's ICT capabilities and thinking skills. Simulations include ball throwing, paint mixing, spreadsheets, plant growing, classroom design, traffic lights and more! The program comes with support sheets and the teacher’s notes provide lots of guidance and ideas for classroom use. If you have an RM CC3 network, RM provides a Curriculum Choice installation package. |
| The other specific area where fewer pupils seem to have had opportunities than in previous years is in the Handling Information/Finding Things Out strand. While there have been greater numbers of pupils achieving some aspects of this strand, only 45% of Year 6 pupils were able to create a datafile, down from 53% a year ago. Again, this is almost certainly not a lack of capability but one of opportunity and again it may be due to lack of access to appropriate software. We would recommend the use of Information Workshop 2000 (or Information Magic if purchasing from RM) which is a very easy data handling application which used to be widely used. |
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In Year 6 both the modelling and the control strands seem to have reached a plateau with just less than 50% of pupils being able to successfully develop a spreadsheet from scratch and just over 50% developing procedures using Logo. Schools which do not yet provide Years 5 and 6 pupils with Logo opportunities might be interested in purchasing the Logo Across the Curriculum booklet produced by the ICT Advisory Team last year or perhaps consider some traded service support to develop this aspect of ICT. The lack of familiarity with spreadsheets at Year 6 was evident in the work pupils submitted as part of the Healthy Food Maths Challenge which was recently delivered through Digitalbrain and suggests that this is an area where we need to work together to develop opportunities.
Schools can order Model Shop, Information Workshop and the Logo booklet mentioned in this article through the ICT Advisory Team at a discounted price.
