ECT in Schools : The Radclyffe School

The next big change for everyone at The Radclyffe School saw the opening of a brand new school building, built as part of the PFI project in Oldham.

This replaced ageing accommodation previously on two sites. The facilities in this new build are first class.

Prior to detailed work by the architects the senior management of the school visited various Technology Colleges and the D&T staff discussed the course we ran at that time, what we wanted to run in future and how we wanted to organise learning.

We drew up our own list of key requirements and sketched ideas for the size and layout of the various rooms. We decided that we needed as much space as we could get, and extensive ICT facilities. Our aim was to have a clean, modern and welcoming environment in every room.

When we first met with senior management and the architects we found that our needs were not in line with the initial plans but, by explaining what we planned in teaching and learning, we were able to get virtually everything we needed.

	The D&T suite has outstanding facilities. In addition to a dedicated systems and control room equipped with extensive ICT, the faculty has access to a CAD suite, a graphics suite, two resistant materials workshops, two industrial food kitchens and a textiles area. There are over 100 computers in the faculty for pupil and staff use. The faculty also benefits from a dedicated PPA room for staff and a spacious multi-media preparation room.
	Because the rooms are large there is plenty of space to fit in all the required equipment and also maintain a sense of space. One thing that was central to the design of the new room was the ICT facilities. In the old school I had gradually built these up over a period of four years from just four laptops when I arrived, to eventually having almost one computer per pupil at the close of the old site.
	I wanted to ensure this development continued and so the new room is equipped with 24 brand new PCs. In fact, the school as a whole now has nearly 700 computers. This means as a school we can provide a PC for every other pupil at any time.
	In addition to the ICT areas a large soldering desk was built into one side of the room with appropriate trunking and plug sockets. A CAD/CAM area was also incorporated with a Roland Modela used for the production of routed PCBs.
	Displays were very important in my old room and the walls had been covered with displays of pupil work, circuit symbols and NC criteria in �pupil speak�. I wanted my displays to be an important part of the new learning environment. The school itself made a decision to ensure that displays remain fresh by insisting that all displays be changed every half term and be largely based on pupil work.
	At KS3 I have developed an entirely paper free experience for pupils, with a large variety of online resources (such as the input/outputs quiz shown on the left) being developed by our faculty virtual teaching and learning environment developer. Every faculty in the school has their own dedicated virtual teaching and learning environment developer and as a result this is an area which is developing rapidly across the school.

The move to the new school has occupied a lot of the time of all staff and I have not implemented any major changes in Units of work this year.

I have changed from Crocodile Technology to the free PICAXE Programming Editor for PIC programming. I have found that this works well and pupils can download it to their home computers.

For the future I am planning to look at how I can incorporate work on remote control using infrared into work at KS3 because I think that pupils will find this very interesting.

We are seeing a continuing rise in the number of pupils choosing our electronics-related GCSEs, from 46 in 2003 to 75 in 2007. In the past we have struggled to attract and keep girls on the course but we are starting to see improvements. Many of our KS4 pupils go on to study electronics further at Oldham 6th Form College who run a very successful A-level course.

In 2003 when I arrived 31% of our Y11 pupils gained 5 or more A* - C grades at GCSE across all subjects. In 2007 67% of pupils gained 5 or more A* - C grades at GCSE. The contextualised value added (CVA) for this set of results put the school in the top 5% of schools in the UK.

In 2003 only the higher band were allowed to opt for electronics-related GCSEs. 26% of the 46 pupils entered gained an A* - C grade. In 2007 electronics-related GCSEs were available to all pupils and 67% of the 75 pupils entered gained an A* - C grade.

In October 2007 Ofsted described the school as �a good school with a number of outstanding features�. The technology faculty was rated as good and leadership and management outstanding. Ofsted recognised the huge strides made since the last inspection in 2005 and also the massive upturn in GCSE results over the last five years. The aim for the next inspection is to achieve �outstanding� in all areas.

The Radclyffe School - new : The Big Move