In Key Stage 5 students complete the OCR National Level 3 Certificate in ICT. Students receive 9 lessons per fortnight in this course. This course consists of 6 units covering a wide variety of topics and themes. Students are encouraged to specialise in a partciular unit in addition to those shown below if they have a particular interest and/or skill in that area.

All assessment is completed by production of a portfolio of evidence and students are encouraged to use the wide variety of specialist softeare that we have during their work.Extensive use is made of our Virtual Learning environment in all lessons and students are able to access all lesson material from outside school.

In this course students complete the following units: :

Unit 1 : Digital Business Communication

In this unit students learn about how communications technology is usedin business to communicate via different means. They establish the aids and barriers tro effective communication and learn how to avoid the barriers when working in an ICT environment. Students will look at how to design a corporate identity and how this can be applied to all documents and resources that they produce. Standard ways of working are encourgaed and all students will produce a wide portfolio of evidence of how written communication is used in a business environment

Unit 2 : Collaborative Working

Students plan how to priduce a resource as a group and investigate the tools that support collaborative working such as forums, VLE's, Online whiteboards etc. They investigate the different types of dearch engine that are available for use and decide which would be the most effective for use for a given task. Students then use these techniques to research a topic and to allocate individual tasks that enablke the group to complete a final topic. Extensive use is made of the collaborative tools available in our vle during this unit.

Unit 3 : Problem Solving

During this unit students will define a statistical problem to investigate and will design a suitable data collection activity to gather the data required for the research task. They will collect the data via electronic means and will then analyse the data to see if their hypothesis is proved. At the end of the unit students will present their findings via presentation.

Unit 4 : Creating a digital showcase

In unit 4 students research a variety of commerical multimedia products and specify the requirements for a product of their own. They will then use their research to design a solution that meets the needs of the user. A real-life user is encourgaed as this makes the feedback process more detailed and thorough. Students then move onto the implemantation phase when they create and edit multimedia components for use in their product.

Unit 20 : Web Authoring

Students analyse existing websites so they understand how commercial web designers focus on the targeted user of the website when making it. They clesely examine how techiques are used to improve website accessibility and how to design a website so its meet the needs of the user and is suitable for purpose. Students will learn how to import scripts and other products to improve the functionaility of the website and how to make the website they have designed. The website will then be uploaded to the internet and tested thoroughly.

Unit 24 : Internet, Past, Present and Future

In unit 24 students will look at how and why the internet has become so popular in recent times. They will examine the history of the internet and establish its roots and reasons why it has grown so rapidly. They will examine the current features of the internet and establish what is likely to happen in the future. Whilst working in this unit students are encouraged to understand the moral, ethical, social and commercial implications of people using it.