Busy Start

It has been the most interesting and busy of beginnings. Dropping into a year 6 class, the term before their SATs, was never going to be easy. But despite being 'tested', having 2-3 lots of marking every day and being in a new school, in a new borough and working with systems I'm not used to, I'm having a ball!

There is a lot to get my head around just teaching in year 6 for the first time, but there is also stacks to do with the ICT.

I arrived at the school with an ICT action plan in my hand, and just 4 weeks in I can start ticking things off. My first discovery was that the ICT policy is 9 years old - ancient for any school policy, never mind in a subject area in which your equipment is out of date in 18 months! So I am in the process of writing a new one (although it might have to wait until the half term).

So far I have:

• written an action plan
  
• begun developing a strong ICT team with Robert, our fabulous IT technician
• bought photo editing software and 6 digital cameras for pupil use
• invested in a data logger which is already being used by year 5
• unearthed a 6 year subscription to EducationCity.com. 2 years gone and no one knew about it! It's being used now!
• started blogging with year 6
• introduced a cross curricular ICT and art topic for year 6
• worked with Robert to research a server for the school - watch this space.
• started to re-write the ICT policy
  

I feel quite proud of what we have achieved so far but there is still a lot to be done and it is going to need to be carefully prioritised. Next on the agenda is a big cupboard sort and resources purge. But that is for 2 days in the holiday. Will keep you posted!