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Celebrate putting technology at the heart of learning!

Naace has a key role in the development and delivery of the ICT Mark working with our partner, the awarding body, Becta. The ICT Mark is an accreditation for schools who have reached nationally agreed levels within the Becta self-review framework.

This short article aims to highlight the background, key features and current vision of the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) project at Ranvilles Infant School. The full version of this research project is available through the University of Winchester library: Aubrey-Smith, F.S., (2007) 'How the implementation of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) can affect the strategic development of a whole school. MA(Ed) Dissertation. University of Winchester.'

Bringing you up to date with the latest news...

Naace has completely revised its quality assurance scheme for service providers to make it consistent with established principles of self-review. Details of this new '2.0' scheme may be found here.

All you need to know about the ICT Mark from an assessor's perspective

The Naace Annual Strategic Conference and Exhibition opened in Torquay in early March 2008. This is the definitive ICT Conference in the UK for all those involved in advancing education through the use of modern technologies in learning and teaching.

A collection of resources has been prepared to support ICT Mark Assessors in the assessment of schools for the ICT Mark Award. Schools may also find some of these materials useful in preparing for assessment. These cover guidance for assessors, details of the assessment process, assessment and reporting pro-formas. All ICT Mark Assessors need to keep up to date with this area, as only the current documents held here are valid.

The streamlined approach is designed for schools with ‘good’ ICT. In such a school, there is likely to be less need to use the self-review framework as a development tool so the focus for them might be to have their self-review validated by an external assessor through a more streamlined approach. The assessment process is exactly the same for all schools; it is simply the preparation/approach that is streamlined.

There do however still remain strong arguments for completing the full self-review framework and not taking advantage of the streamlined offer. The self-review framework is a powerful tool with a lot of support and this is set to get stronger and stronger as it is updated over time. All schools will want to continue to develop their ICT long after their ICT Mark assessment visit and the tool provides an excellent vehicle for this.

In February 2008, Parliament announced its intention to undertake an Inquiry into the National Curriculum and invited submissions of written evidence.

If you are working through the Becta self-review framework then you share our belief that ICT is a tool for school improvement. If you have reached the ICT Mark standard in all aspects of the framework then you have achieved a standard of e-maturity that is worth celebrating!