My current role

This year I have been come out of the classroom to cover PPA right across the school. Being a big 2 form entry Primary School I wanted to really experience the scope and progression right through the school for my own development. As the ICT co-ordinator for the past four years, the Head wanted me to use this as the focus for when I am teaching. Using my expertise definitely impacts on the quality of teaching and I have done similar things in the past where I will teach PE for both classes in the year group as my parallel teaches Art. I think it is hard sometimes to have the same enthusiasm and drive for every single subject. I hold my hands up and say that I do not have a particular strength or desire to be a good artist. I often thought am I letting my children down by not being as good at Art as I am at PE or other subjects? I think with foundation subjects it is a good idea to utilise Teacher's strengths by letting them teach other classes. The quality of learning will always be better when you have a teacher who is passionate about the subject.

Therefore this year I have been using my passion for ICT to teach children from Nursery to Year 6. Before I took on this role I had to get the Head to agree to investing in some up to date hardware to use. The current provision in the school was ok but I wanted to really pilot and test some of the newer technology seen today. I had stumbled across numerous websites about how tablets were now the best thing and as a avid apple user, the iPad just stood out as the most intriguing pieces of equipment which seemed to have so much potential within the classroom. After a little convincing we invested in a class set of iPads - (35 for children, 5 for senior management.) My role this year was to then see how iPads can impact on learning right across the curriculum.

The journey has been a really enjoyable one so far. I am halfway through my second half term and loving my role. The enthusiasm and engagement from the children carries on to be overwhelming. They love using the iPads, they listen more carefully, work together more sensibly and seem to think more creatively.  All the activities and lessons that I have covered have been documented on my school blog.

My main goals for the year are as follows:

  • Set up the school with a blog and try to use this blog to showcase children's work. and hopefully by providing an audience see an impact on the children's learning.
  • Use the iPads with different year groups would give me a a better understanding of how the iPads can be integrated into our ICT curriculum and scheme of work.
  • Have the time to improve other teacher's competence with ICT, bring others with me to make sure that next year when I have a class back, the iPads are still being used the their potential across the school.

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