ICT

The ICT courses at Barclay enable our students to develop their skills in a variety of different kinds of software. In the future, these ICT skills will be a vital part of life and in the short term, these skills can be used to improve students’ work in other subjects across the school, thus raising the overall achievement of the students.

Facilities

There are currently seven computers suites spread across school. These are linked by a whole school network providing identical facilities everywhere in the school. As a   Technology College, we have all the necessary facilities including colour printers, scanners, digital cameras and camcorders.

We have a full range of software to support the curriculum including the Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, Access and PowerPoint), the Macromedia Graphics Suite (for digital graphics and website design), Flowol control software and Pinnacle Studio for video editing. Most subjects including ICT also have a range of software to aid the teaching in that particular subject.

Student Access

When students arrive at   Barclay   School, they are issued with a user name and password which allows them to access the network from anywhere in the school, to store their information on a central server, to use the teaching resources and to access the Internet.  

In addition, their own user directory and most of the learning resources are accessible from home through the school website. This enables students to carry on working at home and to access help and information, which they may have missed.

The Barclay School Internet access is filtered through the Hertfordshire Grid for learning to prevent students accessing unsuitable materials.

The Courses We Provide

Students in Years 7, 8 and 9 follow a practical course based on the National ICT strategy. This provides them with the experience they need of the main ICT skills.

Students in Years 10 and 11 may opt for the Vocational GCSE course in Applied ICT. About two-thirds of our students will take this course. It leads to two GCSEs developing the applied ICT skills needed for industry and investigating the use of IT in various aspects of society.

We also provide courses for students in Years 12 and 13 as part of the Sixth form consortium. The A Level course we provide is the GCE in Applied ICT. This develops the applied ICT skills needed in business and industry and follows on from the GCSE course. The qualification can be completed either as two A levels, one A level or an AS level. We also provide a level 2 course, the Award in Digital Applications, which is equivalent a GCSE course.