Watching children programme Roamer floor turtles (robots) to cross the room, or admiring the artistry they bring to digital paint programs, or the ease with which they edit text, it is easy to forget the work is not just the result of skilled teaching but also of skilled planning, co-operation and some hard decisions.

Teaching ICT in the primary school has its own unique problems. The infrastructure must be right before you can move ahead. The decisions made by the head will have a profound effect on what is possible in that school. Do you cluster computers together so that whole classes can have access? Or do you disperse the hardware so computers can be used when needed? Is there a middle way?

In some ways the decision was made for Janet Espley, the head at Thames Ditton Infant School, Surrey. The 270-pupil school is in a conservation area and there can be no more building - therefore there was no extra room for an ICT suite. Janet is not particularly distressed as she believes in teaching ICT across the curriculum: “We have organised the school so that each classroom has a mini-suite. We have two or three machines and two internet points in each room.”

Thames Ditton has two interactive whiteboards. One is in a central area for general use and classes are timetabled to use it twice a week. The other is used for Easiteach Maths, a software program developed by RM for use with whiteboards.

The school has nine classrooms and aims to put a whiteboard in each - Year 2 is the target for this year. Thames Ditton also has 19 laptops for whole-class work. Each class has that level of resourcing once a week.

Most of the computers in the school are RM Window Box PCs equipped with a range of software. Teachers can help develop skills around those software programs. An example is the Colour Magic program - the skills needed for this can be implemented in the classroom in a cross-curricular way, for instance supporting a science lesson or literacy work.

“Year 2 has learned PowerPoint and that program will be widely used across the curriculum,” says Janet Espley. “Clicker (a software package enabling children to write with words and pictures) is popular for literacy. We are going back to a topic-based approach and ICT is part of that. Above all, we want to ensure that ICT is not taught in isolation. It is an integral part of everything that we do.”

Dilys Brotia, of Torriano Junior School in Kentish Town, London, is convinced that the best and most economical way to teach skills is in a suite of computers.

Explaining their mode of working, she says: “We split ICT in two: learning the skills and using ICT in the curriculum. We learn the skills in the ICT suite where we have 15 computers plus an interactive whiteboard. There the children are shown the procedures of handling data, spreadsheets, internet searching and word processing.” All the work is based on the QCA schemes of work.

Around 15 pupils - half a class - work in the suite while the others cover another subject. At least one computer with internet access in each class means that ICT can support other subjects. The skills are learned in the suite, then practised in the classroom. For example, for geography the children create a multimedia presentation on the topic of “Rivers”. They find the information - on the internet, for instance - before incorporating it into their presentation. “In literacy they research the background and opinions of authors,” she adds.

The aim at Torriano Junior is for every classroom to have an interactive whiteboard: “We hope to have every classroom equipped by the end of this financial year. The hidden benefit of these in ICT is that children see their teachers actively using the computer through the use of the whiteboard. It is an inspiration for the kids. The children can see it is a tool that they will need themselves.”

Jenny Noel-Storr at Redhill School, Telford, believes strongly that the skills of word processing, spreadsheets and LOGO (a computer language designed to introduce the basic concepts of creating computer programs) are forgotten if not used immediately and then reinforced in the classroom. She has found over time that, with an interactive whiteboard and plenty of access to the computer, the teaching of skills is not a problem. “You don’t have to spend long teaching children to do something they either have to do, such as breathe, or really want to do, such as kick a ball or use a computer.”