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Section 2: Planning and Implications for Managers

Staff development

ICT has emerged as both a significant teaching and learning resource and as an area in which people generally need to develop their own competence and confidence. In this, teachers are no different from society as a whole, but it is acknowledged that teachers need support to develop the necessary knowledge and skills, given their role in the preparation of young people for the future. Teachers recognise the importance of ICT and the potential it has for enhancing teaching and learning and they are properly concerned to identify issues that will impede development, such as:

  • provision of hardware and online access
  • time available to review new software packages to support curricular areas
  • time to develop personal skills in ICT
  • planning time to take account of ICT developments
  • appropriate training opportunities.

    While having mainly positive views about ICT generally, most staff are currently likely to have confidence with certain applications only - such as word-processing - where the links to current curricular work are clear, rather than in some other applications such as multimedia packages or advanced electronic communication. There is uncertainty amongst some secondary specialist staff about teaching ICT within their subject and amongst primary staff that a raft of new knowledge and expertise is yet another requirement for the generalist practitioner.

    The Welsh study referred to earlier, Asking Questions/Getting Answers, identifies ICT-competent teachers as displaying the following characteristics.

  • Positive attitudes to ICT
  • Understanding of the educational potential of ICT
  • Ability to make effective use of ICT in the curriculum
  • Ability to manage ICT in the classroom effectively
  • Ability to evaluate ICT use as one teaching and learning tool as compared with others
  • Ability to ensure purpose and differentiation
  • Technical ability
    OHT master

    • The report goes on to say:
      For most teachers who are using IT successfully in teaching, their decision to develop pupils' IT capability is a natural response to learners' needs. Subsequent reflection on these experiences leads to planning future teaching to address these needs specifically. The most successful schools disseminate this classroom experience and plan for all pupils to gain similar opportunities for IT learning.

    The challenge facing schools is how best to develop ICT-competent teachers and the ethos that leads staff naturally to build ICT into day-to-day professional practice.

    At national level the New Opportunities Fund training scheme offers schools and authorities a means of accessing appropriate training based on the work in schools. Several examples in this guide are drawn from materials developed by NOF training providers.

    For many schools there is also the opportunity to benefit from locally provided INSET from the local authority and the possibility of input from specialist authority support staff or providers contracted to it. A coordinated approach to training is required to meet the strategic needs of the school and individual teachers.

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