The National Curriculum programmes of study (2007) at Key Stages 3 and 4 represent the entitlement curriculum for all learners from 11 to 16 years of age.
As a first stage of planning, it is important to become familiar with the new programmes of study and the aims within them. It is important to establish the differences between the new programmes of study and the 2000 National Curriculum for ICT – you can see the differences at Addressing the new secondary curriculum for ICT. By establishing the changes, you can identify the areas of your existing scheme of work which can be taught in their present form, and develop priorities for other areas that need to be changed. There will be much in your present scheme of work which can be retained, and some units may require only minor adaptation.
Your department and school will already have a vision for the learning and teaching of ICT, and will have agreed its priorities for development. Before you start planning your scheme of work, you should revisit your vision and priorities within the context of whole-school developments and consider any changes you want to make, identifying any local factors that should be taken into account (for example: timetabling, curriculum design and staffing).
You may also need to consider other issues in your planning. For example: will the ICT department be solely responsible for delivering the programmes of study, or will some subjects take the lead in teaching specific areas of it? Is the school developing a curriculum that focuses on integrated delivery within a number of subjects? Do you want to place increased emphasis on areas such as qualifications (including ICT functional skills), post-16 pathways or local circumstances?
Look at the learning objectives in the renewed Framework for secondary ICT, which show progression from Years 7 to 11, including extension objectives, across the ten areas of the ICT programmes of study.
Start your planning by considering pupils' prior achievement. For example: the Year 7 learning objectives assume that the majority of pupils will be working at or around level 4. However, once you have reviewed these objectives, you may decide to develop your scheme of work by using the Year 8 objectives for some pupils and Year 7 for others.
Whichever objectives you use, the typical outcomes for a class of pupils are likely to range either side of the starting point. Lesson plans should allow for this degree of differentiation.
During the planning process, you should view the objectives on either side of your starting point. Once you are familiar with both the programmes of study and the learning objectives, you are ready to develop your unit plans.
