Naace KS3 ICT Framework

The KS3 ICT draft curriculum was written for Naace by Naace Board of Management members Allison Allen and Paul Heinrich and was officially launched at BETT2012 on Friday 13 January. It forms the basis of the ICT Framework that has been developed as a result of the recent consultations, including the dedicated session on Friday 9 March 2012 at the Naace Conference here.

The Naace ICT Framework provides an audit and planning tool to enable schools to deliver a broad and balanced ICT curriculum and provide a clear progression from EYFS to Key Stage 3. It provides a firm basis for KS4 studies.  Whilst some suggestions are given about fleshing out the framework and about approaches to teaching and learning, there is sufficient flexibility and choice for a school to develop and personalise the curriculum so that it best meets the needs of their learners within their local context. However it is important that schools recognise that in order to deliver a broad and balanced ICT curriculum, they need to include all five areas of the curriculum framework in their provision. Features of Third Millennium Learning – culture, attitudes, pedagogies, environment and tools, use of higher order thinking skills – should sweep through each of the strands and areas for learning.

Naace believes that there is no prescribed way of teaching ICT and computing and there can be no prescribed script for any lesson. The proposals are therefore sufficiently flexible to enable a wide range of teaching, learning and assessment strategies that can be adapted to meet the varied needs of learners, cope with resource limitations and support the use of ICT in a student’s wider learning.

The Framework Toolkit will be developed to provide support, research and resources and fuller explanations of aspects of the framework. In the meantime, the fuller curriculum document released at BETT 2012 will provide further explanation - see the pdf below.