Northern Grid's accreditation from Becta has been renewed.

The Becta Accreditation of Internet Services enables schools and other establishments to make an informed choice of a managed internet service provider or web content filtering solution. Accredited products and services must meet and maintain specific standards in web content filtering and service performance.

The standards of assessment have been developed in consultation with partners in education and industry to ensure the provision of reliable and relevant information. The scheme re-launched during Safer Internet Week in February 2009, following a review. The scope of the accreditation has been extended to include a wider range of standalone products designed to protect internet users not just in the school environment, but which can also be employed in other environments where children and young people have access to the internet.

A managed internet service provider is a provider to education that can supply a range of internet safety services. An individual web content filtering product or service supplies specific solutions to internet services providers.

For the full list of accredited service providers visit the Becta site

Congratulations to the schools recognised in the Becta 2010 ICT Excellence Awards. The ICT Excellence Awards is an awards scheme for schools, local authorities and other organisations supporting schools which aim to identify and reward whole school excellence in ICT and reward those organisations who support school improvement with ICT.

The schools are:

Best whole school UK Secondary and Best Whole school North East

Winner: Egglescliffe School, Stockton-on-Tees

Leadership, management and collaboration Secondary

Highly Commended: Longfield School, Darlington

Information about the awards

Link to list of winners

The Learning Platform Network is an ambitious initiative to connect and support schools in their use of learning platforms.

Schools improve when they effectively use their learning platform to support leadership, innovative and appropriate teaching and learning, assessment, data management and communication with all members of the learning community.

The Becta Learning Platform Model was developed by a national group who represent schools, LAs and RBCs and the members are Sally Elding – Cambridgeshire Senior Adviser for ICT (Primary), Stephen Schwartz – Croydon ICT Strategy Manager Department for Children, Young People and Learners, Ian Usher – Buckinghamshire eLearning Co-ordinator, School Improvement Service, Alex Rees – Redbridge School Improvement Adviser, Dennis Wyatt – Dudley DGFL Portal Project Manager, Robin Sutton – Peterborough Senior Adviser 21st Century Development Manager, Alexander Findlay – Stockport VLE Development Consultant, Simon Finch – Northern Grid for learning e-learning officer and Dave Whyley – Wolverhampton Headteacher Consultant Learning Technologies,

In addition to the interactive PDF there is also a range of audio, video and text resources and provide further evidence and case studies of school's implementation of their learning platform to support transformational teaching and learning.

Northern Grid is a founder member of the Learning Platform Network, and will support and nurture a regional learning platform network which will integrate with the wider national and international learning platform networks. It is here on the Northern Grid website that...

The learning platform adoption model has been published by Becta. The model shows how best to utilise your learning platform.

Go to the web version

Download the PDF version

How do you use your learning platform? Comment below!

Next Generation Learning has published a report investigating parents' involvement in school work at home.

Key Findings

• 83% of parents struggle to support their child with homework.
• Over half of children are confused by their parents when they try to help with school work.
• 81% of parents welcome guidance on how to support their child’s learning better.

View the Full Report

Are you a parent? How do you get involved with your children's school work? Post a comment below!

Over 380 schools

Over 7200 pupils

Over 670 teams participated in the 2010 National School Quiz!

And we are pleased to announce the winners were:

Those that have registered codes can still continue to play the quiz. If players didn’t get a chance to print their certificate we will be emailing all registered teachers with their players’ certificates late next week.

The quiz will become open access for anyone to test their knowledge soon, please check back regularly for updates.

Find out more at The Next Generation Learning website

Schools across the UK are invited to become #BectaX Regional Nodes and to be part of the development process and the event. The will be asked to feed their thoughts, ideas and suggestions into the auditorium. If you are a teacher and want your school to take part in this world first educational experiment, let us know.

Go to the #BectaX Site

Becta have released a tool to gauge how commited your school is to ICT. See below for more information and the link:

This tool gauges your school’s strength in ICT, prior to a full analysis on the self-review framework. It also indicates your likely position on the Next Generation Learning Charter, demonstrating commitment and progress in using ICT.

How should the survey be used?

The results propose a plan to discuss the impact of ICT in your school. Your approach should involve senior decision makers if you wish to develop this further with the self-review framework.

How long will it take?

It takes no longer than 30 minutes and aims to quickly assess your current position. The self-review framework offers a more in-depth evaluation, you may choose to use at a later stage.

Go to the Survey Page

Pupils from Lingfield Primary School in Marton, Middlesbrough are starring in a film to help develop ICT teaching across the country. The film is being made by Becta who are the Government agency responsible for ensuring the effective and innovative use of technology learning.

A film crew has recently visited the school to shoot scenes for the film and it will be shown to teachers and officials in education authorities across the country to improve the way information technology is used in education.

For more information please visit this page

Digital literacy is a combination of functional ICT skills, critical thinking, collaboration skills and social awareness. Developing young people’s digital literacy in schools is a vital step in enabling them to become e-mature and safe participants in an increasingly dense landscape of technology and media developments.

The importance of digital literacy is recognised in the Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum and in reforms to the secondary curriculum. Developing digital literacy is also a key aim of the Government’s Digital Britain strategy, aiming to increase young people’s ability to engage effectively with the world through technology.

Digital literacy relates to skills associated with:

1. Defining the task
2. Accessing information
3. Evaluating and understanding information
4. Creating and
5. Communicating

Commissioned by Becta, NWLG has developed a Key Stage 3 resource focusing on the knowledge and skills related to accessing, understanding and evaluating digital information.

Learners can navigate their own way intuitively around the resource and make independent choices based upon personal preference and interests. They are then encouraged to question their knowledge, understanding and behaviours through the use of magazine style quizzes providing them with feedback on their internet ‘personality’. Learners then select areas for further investigation. Each area provides them with information that challenges their assumptions and then allows the learner to test and practice their understanding through a game.

The resource is not intended to be a complete digital literacy course but serves as an introduction to encourage the learner to reflect on and question their current practices.

   Also labeled: Curriculum, ICT, KS3, PSHE & Citizenship, Students, NWLG Created

How to Join a Becta Forum Group

   Also labeled: SEN, Guidance

E-Safety Advice From BECTA

   Also labeled: Guidance, eSafety