Tackling common problems

School Improvement with ICT is designed to help schools enhance their provision and raise standards of achievement. Headteachers are under great pressure to raise achievement and improve schools. At the same time, they face problems of staff recruitment and retention, student attendance and behaviour, and declining support from parents/carers. The effective application of ICT can really help schools to meet these challenges.

The emphasis in School Improvement with ICT is how ICT tools can be used to provide solutions to the key problems facing schools. For example:

• Improve staff recruitment and retention — More than ever, teachers are feeling the pressures of administrative burdens, lack of self-determination over the curriculum, and external pressures to raise achievement. Student behaviour, parental support and professional kudos have all declined. All of these difficulties need to be faced by schools. By helping to relieve such problems, ICT can improve the working life of teachers, and therefore help to combat the problem of recruitment and retention.
• Ease pressure on management — Headteachers and senior managers are finding their days busier and their jobs more and more complex. ICT can increase their administrative efficiency significantly. It offers powerful analytical tools to enhance their understanding of their institution, helping to speed up the planning and implementation of constructive change.
• Improve engagement and raise achievement — Teaching which includes exciting new ICT-based approaches can increase motivation, even among disruptive students. Greater engagement leads to improved attainment, and can be especially successful with boys who might otherwise be underperforming. There is increasing evidence of successful practice in the use of ICT for learning making a real impact on standards of achievement, and improving attitudes and behaviour. The BECTA research ImpaCT2 (www.becta.org.uk/research/impact2/) has clearly shown that schools with good ICT resources have better achievement than those with poor ICT resources.
• Improve attendance and behaviour — Increasing engagement and achievement tends to raise self-esteem. Students who feel better about themselves are usually less disruptive and view school more positively, reducing truancy. In addition, ICT can help track pastoral problems to reveal important patterns and facilitate effective solutions. Monitoring attendance and responding quickly to absence becomes easier using ICT.
• Increase administrative efficiency — The range of administrative tasks in schools seems to grow inexorably. The solution to keeping on top is to use ICT extensively. Many aspects of preparation, assessment, monitoring and reporting can be completed far more efficiently using a computer.
• Get more from support staff — ICT can also empower support staff, enabling them to contribute more when providing classroom support and to free up qualified teacher time.
• Get parents back on your side — Use ICT to improve communication and involvement with parents/carers.