KS3 on-screen test for ICT
5 01 2007QCA will be recommending that the on-screen test for ICT at the end of KS3 will NOT be compulsary, deciding it will be an uneccesary burden for schools.
Mr Gee recommended to the QCA that the test should be used “as an integral and standardised tool for informing teacher assessment”.
We now have to wait for the DfES to make a decision on whether or not the test will be compulsary.
Personally I hope that the DfES take QCA’s advice and do not make the test compulsary. Over the last year or two when I have been working with schools in Shropshire preparing for the test the most obvious effect of the test was to reduce creativity in the classroom. Schools have been adapting their schemes of work for year 9, spending a great deal of time preparing students for the test and removing the opportunities for the students to use cool ICT tools, as the test only really covered office applications (that looked nothing like the office environment that the pupils were used to).
It will be interesting to see the future of the test, I think there is a place for it but we shouldn’t be using it to drive the curriculum we are teaching in the classroom. Maybe it will be used for the functional skills test, to give a rough benchmark on transfer or to guage a teachers basic ICT/office skills. I can’t see the test just disappearing as the DfES have invested so much money in it, I guess we just have to wait and see.
So what do you think? Is this a positive step, or has the idea of a compulsary test at the end of KS3 led to more support for the ICT department from the Headteacher and SMT, had the thought of the test on the horizon lead to more curriculum time and specialist teachers, if so will it be a negative step?
The BBC news article can be found here.
I think this is excellent news, and it is interesting that it comes just a few days before the BETT show. It seems to me that with each day that passes, the test has become more irrelevant to the use of ICT. I think your second paragraph says it all, Steve; and hopefully we can now get on with using the technology creatively and productively to learn. Therefore if Alan Johnston, takes QCA advice and the test becomes “Optional” , I cannot see many schools going with this, (although I may be proved wrong).
As for the (public) money that has been spent on developing and piloting this; well, that is another matter! And of course there are vested interests!
I feel a post coming on…..