These awards recognise how the school has developed an innovative training programme to establish Information and Communications Technology as an integral part of all learning. The school’s Educational Technology Strategy Group (ETSG) has developed a six-point plan for the school aimed at enhancing learning experiences, stimulating and supporting teachers, building infrastructure, preparing for curriculum change and managing pupil learning. Teachers were encouraged to embrace the use of ICT, particularly within the school’s unique Learning Centre. During 2005 -2006, the ETSG planned and delivered three full-day training workshops. Subject departments were required to integrate ICT into teaching schemes, as well as design and implement tasks that could be used for ICT assessment. Ballyclare High School has also become a Microsoft Academy, and adjudicators commented on how the school is now recognised as a leader in the Education Technology field.

This award comes on top of the school’s success in the Microsoft Innovation in Teaching Awards. The school won joint-first place for its project entitled ‘Thinking through Robotics’. The initiative, led by Physics teacher Dr Paul Wilson, uses robotic technology in order to design and develop programmable ICT systems. Researchers from Queens University assisted in developing the project and presenting it to pupils. Following this, Ballyclare High School pupils acted as learning mentors in the delivery of robotics workshops to local primary schools. The project also demonstrated how thinking skills could be developed through Science. The ‘Thinking through Robotics’ initiative will now be showcased at the International Innovation Conference in Helsinki, Finland, at the end of October.

The achievement of the two awards comes a year after the school won the best UK school in the Becta ICT Excellence Awards, and just nine months after the school became the first educational establishment in Northern Ireland to achieve the government’s ICT Mark.