Do ICT suites have any place in 21st century primary schools? Katy Potts weighs up the research findings and comes to a decisive answer: 'No!' So why do so many school leaders still press for ICT suites? And what's missing from ICT strategies that leads them to seek the supposed safety of obsolescent solutions?

Pupils at St Jude and St Paul's CE Primary School, Islington, enjoy the benefits of using ICT as and when it is needed most - in the classroom.

Learning with ICT in a typical UK primary school consists of an ICT suite with on average 15 PCs, often a room on the top floor away from the rest of the school – or a trolley of laptops for the whole class to use once or twice a week.

Back in the classroom there’s an electronic whiteboard, and one or two PCs for the children to share. There have been pockets of innovation in local authorities around the country where children are provided with their own mobile device - but these are still exceptions, not the rule.
 
The limitations of delivering learning through ICT in weekly timetabled slots in an ICT suite have been discussed widely in research and publications. The question most often raised is, how personalised is teaching 30 children a dedicated lesson once a week?

Think about it – could you save up all the times you need to use ICT into one slot a week? And when your slot does come round, what happens if it clashes with other events? And if you can’t rearrange the timetable, then the room is often left unused. (As a visitor to many schools I have been shown to the ICT suite as a spare empty room to work in!)
 
These suites can restrict ICT to under-used spaces and prevent it from being used in those places where it is most needed – back in the classroom, across all subjects and across all learning. It should be used routinely, with a flick of a switch, as and when it is needed to support transformational learning.
 
This was highlighted in the recent report from Oftsed, The Importance of ICT, in the final part of section B 'Getting ICT to the learning' (page 35):

“Schools have successfully created a demand from teachers to be able to use ICT to improve learning in other subjects but are rarely able to meet it. Most primary and secondary schools have chosen to centralise the bulk of their ICT resources in networked computer room…but the result is that resources are often extremely limited elsewhere for work in other subjects. It is still common to see students taking work from other subjects to the computer room where they are using ICT, in effect, only to present their ideas well. When ICT is unavailable to students in their classrooms when they are studying other subjects, it is unable to contribute to improving learning."
 
Further research highlights the gap between this experience and the pupil’s world outside school, where they often do use ICT routinely. Research from Becta (Learning and Technology 7-11  concludes that pupils’ use of ICT in school is very different to the ICT they use at home, playing Wii and Nintendo DS, meeting new friends online and experiencing virtual worlds. So it’s not just the lack of ICT in the classroom for pupils to learn with, but that technology can be limited to just the computer.
 
The term “Powering down for school”, popularised by leading educationist Professor Stephen Heppell, has become synonymous with this barring of children’s own technology from schools. It is well illustrated by the video Engage Me from Robin Hood School on the NCSL’s Future website where the students, or “digital natives” (another popular term) say they want to use more technology in learning.
 
BECTA’s Learning and Technology 7-11 says that “Schools should be encouraged and supported to explore alternative strategies of encouraging good uses of ICT in school, achieved through close consultation with learners and which can draw upon the best elements of home ICT use but retain an educational relevance and value”
 
Of course there are headteachers who have warmly embraced ICT, and have it firmly embedded in classrooms with mobile and gaming devices, usually without an ICT suite or with an ICT suite to support extended learning and the community. Case studies can be found through the BECTA ICT Excellence awards.
 
The forthcoming publication of the Rose review is providing an important opportunity for headteachers to consider redesigning the curriculum with ICT playing a significant role. The findings of the review recommend the curriculum should be “forward-looking”, with a greater emphasis on online tools and social media embraced as a part of this. This reconfirms the view of many educationists who believe a step change in the way children use ICT in schools is an essential ingredient of transformational learning; and that to consider learning without ICT is a mistake that is harder to rectify later.
 
Some schools, however, lack the confidence to change their ICT infrastructure. As with any important decision, priority and time must be given to developing a vision for learning and ICT within any building programme or capital investment – or the “same old” will result.
 
One local authority has been supporting all schools in the early stages of a capital programme or ICT infrastructure upgrade in developing a vision and strategy for ICT.  The vision and strategy for ICT document from Cambridge Education at Islington provides a model of support with four important elements:

• Consultation with staff, governors and children through an established ICT team that includes at least one member of the senior management team
• School visits to see new models of practice
• Trialling of equipment
• Use of Becta’s ICT Self Review Framework (with eight elements) to support development planning.

This model of support has proved invaluable in informing schools on their ICT strategy. In several cases headteachers were adamant that an ICT suite should be part of the solution but this soon changed after visiting neighbouring schools with more flexible models using mobile laptops and devices in the classroom. These schools speak enthusiastically of the impact of using ICT in the classroom, and reassure the visiting schools that this set-up is reliable using a robust wireless connection and infrastructure.
 
However, schools have not always done away with their ICT suites entirely. Where appropriate, many have retained them for flexible access by students for their studies during the school day, and as a resource for extended learning and the community.

However, none of them introduced new ICT suites – the message got through that their days as “teaching” rooms are over. A space dedicated for computers has now become the Internet Café or media room, or simply computers in communal areas where children can learn from each other.
 
So, for those headteachers who need further inspiration to make a leap of faith away from the traditional ICT suite, look to David Broadfield, former headteacher of Robin Hood primary school where an impressive improvement in standards was attributed partly to the innovative use of ICT. (This school was used extensively as a case study in SLICT, a model where technology, in particular film making and visual literacy, was embedded across the curriculum.)
 
David Broadfield describes a sundial outside the landmark building that is Los Angeles Central Station and bears the inscription “Vision to see – Faith to believe – Courage to do”.

“This could be the mantra for re-visioning the role of ICT in our schools,” David says. “It’s time to be brave!

• Islington's ICT visioning document for PCP

Katy Potts is Primary Manager ICT, Cambridge Education @ Islington