Specialism Portal

Stage 1 of the new specialism portal is going live this week. Over the past three months we have shaped some ideas as to what we would like in the new portal. In a nutshell we wanted somewhere where all staff could go to get relevant information about the school as a specialist technology college. In addition we also wanted somewhere to manage all the work of our three specialist departments (maths, science and technology). Specifically we wanted to develop strategies that would enhance the level of monitoring and evaluation within the specialist departments. The portal will help us to achieve just this by including a few key areas:

• File areas for each department that only departmental staff have access to - this file area is linked into the SLT portal. All documentation relating to how the departments manage work of the specialism will be located here - this will ensure that all staff in each department take ownership of work and undertaken and enhance communication
• Online forms - used to allow staff to enter details of specialist activities that have been undertaken to inform the SEF - this will help departments undertake more effective evaluation of their work in addition to providing SLT with data to monitor progress against the School Development Plan (SDP)
• Signposting links to resources to help specialist departments raise standards
• Access to public/private discussion forums where staff can communicate within and between the specialist departments

It is going to be interesting to look at the impact that the portal has over the remainder of this academic year and into next. I'm working on some graphics and text for a few of the pages now - ready to go live in our Project Team meeting on Thursday (19/3/09).

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