What happens after the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) ICT training scheme for teachers comes to an end? Well, let’s hope some of the lessons learnt from it will be acted on. One lesson was that senior staff in schools should be engaged with ICT - that’s “engaged”, not just nodding appreciatively as their underlings use computer technology, but using it themselves.
That’s almost the aim of the new two-day, in-school course run by the International Curriculum and Assessment Agency (ICAA), one of the more successful NOF training providers. It targets headteachers and senior managers on the theme of managing schools for the future.
The course, developed by Mike Rumble and Stephen Harrison, both of whom were at the heart of the NOF training programme, is designed to assist schools to identify the ways in which ICT will change and affect teaching, learning and school management and to develop a vision of the future.
Another aim is to enable managers to control change rather than react to events in ad hoc ways. There will be an emphasis on a strategy to allow the co-ordination of ICT resources, teaching and learning and management systems. This will ensure involvement and ownership of ICT developments by all key managers.
The work covered in the two days will include: how to analyse the present position of a school; the identification of long-term aims; production of short and medium-term action plans; managing professional development; and appreciation of the strategies required for the integration of ICT into teaching, learning and management.
Ben Kelsey of the ICAA says: “Heads have been left out of the ICT debate. No one has systematically addressed the management of schools in the state sector.”
The NOF scheme was aimed at individuals, while this trainingcourse will look at schools as a whole. It will be launched in June, with a series of meetings across the country.
www.icaa.org.uk
Jack Kenny
