Case studies Invicta Grammar School

Mark Yeats, Head of ICT

Invicta is an all girls grammar school based in Maidstone, Kent. The school has 1,192 students.

Background

We encouraged students in year 10 to enter the Webit competition following their GCSE short-course exams in the summer term of 2003. Five students got together and formed a team to take part.

Our Webit project

The first step was to introduce the project outline to students and spend time discussing the project in-depth. Students then talked through ideas with their team-mates before committing to the final idea for their website. Ideas were generated wholly by students.

Once ideas were sketched out, students were directed to broaden out the scope of their chosen topic and develop their ideas using available resources, such as the Internet and CD-ROMs.

Students were told to produce a rough map of their proposed site on paper, a 'sitemap'. Drawing up a sitemap helped them to focus on the suitability of content and level of detail for their site, to research specific topics, and to think about how these topics linked up.

As soon as the team were happy with their research they started to build the website. This went through a couple of stages, the initial build and then, once all information was put into the basic site, the team refined their website to make it more user-friendly and appealing.

The build process took about two weeks, and time was allocated to the project in lessons, form sessions, lunch times and after school.

What we got out of Webit

The project was successful because the students were really motivated and fired up! It was a fantastic opportunity to do something different in a framework that was real with interesting rewards.

Tips and advice

Although the project was cross-curricula, I'd recommend introducing it initially to ICT co-ordinators and then asking them to liase with subject teachers to ensure there is the capacity and resources to run the competition effectively.

Targeting the project at year 10 worked well because students were mature enough to understand the project and build their websites without requiring too much input from teachers.