In the I.C.T Department at Repton we seek to:
recognise that proficiency in ICT will be important in the market place of the 21st century;
encourage all pupils to develop their skills, and, because the technology continues to move forward, endeavour to ensure that all pupils are familiar with the latest tools and software, thus keeping them at the leading edge of the ICT Revolution;
embrace healthy debate about resources, skills and educational impact of ICT; and
ensure a sensible evolution which preserves the best of traditional teaching supported by modern electronic resources under the control of teachers.
Information Technology Department at Repton
Information Technology is taught on the timetable to all pupils in their first two years at Repton and includes a course of ICT skills that will allow them to continue to develop as confident and enthusiastic users of various software applications to aid and enhance their school work and studies. Furthermore, throughout their time at Repton, we develop pupils’ ICT skills through a cross-curricular approach, whereby the development of ICT skills are taught through the medium of subjects studied.
Outside the classroom, we have started a number of new initiatives this year. These include a PC building workshop; DI: (Digital Intelligence) a module taught as part of the Lower Sixth Form Civics programme and ‘Tech Heads’ the department’s own society which will work on advanced ICT skills and small projects such as computer animation, games development. The society will also welcome speakers from the IT world. Our aim is simply to inspire interest and ingenuity well beyond standard syllabuses.
Facilities
The department consists of three teaching rooms. There are 62 PC’s, all running Windows 7, Office 2007 and a range of other applications such as Adobe Photoshop CS. All machines are linked to colour laser printers. We also have a wide range of equipment including scanners, robots, video and digital cameras which can be used by pupils for school projects and coursework. The Department is open outside lesson time to allow for access to the suites for work and recreational purposes.
The School has recently released a new Intranet via MS SharePoint and each academic department has its own page of resources for pupils to use. Within the School all PC’s are connected to the Internet by our 4Mb leased line. Pupils and staff have their own e-mail addresses and we also run our own web server (http://www.repton.org.uk). The department is currently staffed by the head of department, a full time network manager and two technicians.
Our network has fibre optic links to the whole school and provides sockets in all classrooms and pupil sockets in every study in each boarding house. These provide Internet access, e-mail facilities and access to centrally held files which can be now also be accessed through our secure web portal during the holidays. All departments and houses have their own networked PCs, interactive whiteboard, projector and laser printer.