Towards ‘Outstanding, Wigmore High School, Leominster

Reports here http://moodlexchange.com/?p=338#more-338

Wigmore is a small school of 450 students that has a specialism in ICT and Maths. The students begin life at Wigmore about average in ability but make rapid progress in KS3, by the end of year 11 all have got at least a grade C in ICT and two thirds have an A or A*

 The report says ‘all students take a vocational qualification in KS4, if this is in either DiDA or OCR Nationals, which they begin in year 9 then it is difficult to see where the ‘A*’ comes from. But to be charitable, one assumes it is one of these two.

How do they do it? Cross curricular ICT is well embedded and extensive, this gives students more access to ICT and they spend more time using and becoming familiar with software, this builds up their level of skill. The large investment in Laptops in all subject areas allows students to use ICT independently and when it is justified.

Students are ‘very well behaved’ not something available to everyone.

Students have access to exemplar work by previous students, demonstrating grades, They know their current level of performance and they know what they have to do to improve it. Assessment is seen as a strength by OFSTED.

Students with learning difficulties or disabilities use voice recognition software. This allows them to keep up with other students and improves their confidence. The software licences mean that the software is most probably associated with the laptop it is on.