ICT and the wider school community | |
|The development of new ICT technologies allows schools to extend the learning and teaching community beyond the physical structure of the school |
|and the accepted daily pattern. This section hopes to support schools who feel they may wish to investigate and trial the use of a particular |
|technology to provide added value to learning and teaching. |

|Starting points |
| |
|Learning at home and at school |
|Does the school have a website that supports the development of a common understanding of the schools’ teaching and learning philosophy between |
|parents/carers, guardians, teachers, children and governors? |
|Is the website used to foster dialogue between parents/carers and their children related to the work that the children are/have been actively |
|involved in? |
|Does the school use its website to direct children to resources that they may wish to use in the home learning environment to extend their learning|
|independency and encourage the development of an ‘enthusiasm to learn’? |
|Does the school have a level of e-mail communication that supports teachers and children communicating with other communities to extend and enhance|
|learning opportunities? |
|Has the school developed any active links with agencies that could provide specialist support to teachers and learners? For example, has the school|
|developed communication with authors via e-mail so that children get a different perspective on how they could develop their work further? |
|Does the school provide children with the facility to develop their work further in their home environment by logging onto a school portal, which |
|will provide the resources they need and access to their work files? |
|Has the school considered developing video-conferencing facilities so that children can experience sharing ideas and getting immediate feedback via|
|a form of visual communication? |
|To what extent are the school’s ICT resources made available to the extended school community? For example, are there parent/carer groups |
|developing their ICT capability in order that they can support their children and feel part of the ICT learning world? |

|Areas for consideration |
| |
|Are teachers aware of ‘managed electronic community projects’ that they can be involved in without having the pressures of managing the elements of|
|them? For example, are teachers who set problem-solving tasks aware of relevant on-line scenarios that pupils can access and that give feedback? |
|Are you aware of the