Welcome to IT @ Highworth - on this, and it's associated pages, we aim to provide you with information and help regarding the IT facilities we provide here at Highworth Grammar School, as well as some more general IT advice.

For information regarding the teaching of ICT, please visit the homepage of the ICT Department.

IT Staff

IT Network Manager: Mr. M. Blake

Mr. Blake leads the technical IT staff at Highworth, ensuring that the IT facilities provide the features and stability necessary to benefit teaching and learning, as well as managing new IT developments across the school.

Mr. Blake has been involved in educational IT for over 10 years, and specialises in network systems, Microsoft technologies, databases, and developing IT-based solutions to enhance teaching and learning.

Senior IT Technician: Mr. R. Doubtfire

Mrs. Banham provides support to the school community in the use of IT facilities.

With a background in customer service, Mrs. Banham ensures that the school receives effective and timely support.

Facilities

The school has 4 general classroom IT suites, as well as a dedicated suites for Music and Graphic Design. There are also a number of drop-in areas around the school, and many classrooms have workstations available. Extensive use is made of mobile technology, with many departments having a dedicate suite of laptops.

All major classrooms are fitted with a wireless data projector, and all teaching staff are equipped with tablet PCs. This combination provides a very flexible tool for classroom teaching, enhancing the idea behind Interactive Whiteboards.

A school-wide video streaming service is in use providing up-to-date messaging and the presentation of video content to mentor classrooms.

All computers have Internet access, which is provided via a dedicated 10MB broadband connection, this in turn connects to the national JANET educational network. Students are provided with a school e-mail account to communicate both internally and externally on work-related matters.

To facilitate home learning - students have access to their work files, school email, various learning resources, and Virtual Learning Environment, from any Internet-enabled computer.

The school takes its duty of care to the online safety and protection of students very seriously. WebSense Internet filtering is in place which ensures the websites accessible to students are of an appropriate nature for education, and blocks inappropriate content. Additionally, Securus monitoring software is installed on all computers, ensuring any grooming, bullying, or other issues, are brought to the school's attention as soon as possible.

Desktop and laptop computers within the school are of a high specification, and run the Microsoft Windows XP operating system, with Microsoft Office XP or 2003 available. OpenOffice is also available within IT suites. Additionally a large amount of departmental and cross-curricular software is available, with specialised areas having additional software/features/peripherals as appropriate.

Technical Information