UICT, along with Communication and Using Mathematics, is one of the three statutory crosscurricular skills, introduced as part of the Northern Ireland Curriculum.

The Requirements for Using ICT are set out under headings described as the 5 ‘E’s. These are Explore, Express, Exchange, Evaluate and Exhibit. They represent the steps a learner might follow when taking an initial idea from concept to completion. They have been colour-coded to make it easier to track progression.

As pupils progress through the higher levels of UICT, they will demonstrate understanding of audience and purpose, for example, creating a presentation for Year 8 pupils or a newsletter for older people in their community.

At the highest levels, the focus becomes narrower as to who the ICT product is for and what it needs to do/communicate. Teachers may frame this in a scenario, for example, you are designing a set of drawings to advertise a gadget on a manufacturer’s website. Therefore, there is a client (the manufacturer) and end users (those who access the website). Pupils will become increasingly discerning in order to demonstrate this.

The Desirable Features are non-statutory guidance statements which correspond to the UICT Levels of Progression. The Desirable Features set out the type of characteristics you should look for when observing a pupil and assigning a level to a piece of work. The Desirable Features have also been colour-coded to make it clear which of the 5 ‘E’s they are contributing to.

No, they are representative of a range of ICT activities that have been drawn up to take account of the various approaches and software being used in schools at Key Stage 3

ICT is now assessed as one holistic level. The previous strands no longer exist. As part of the NI Curriculum there are ‘new’ UICT Requirements and the levels have been rewritten in accordance with this.

The scheme will certainly advance your school’s experience of delivering and assessing the cross-curricular skill of UICT in advance of assessment becoming statutory. The scheme remains voluntary at present.

Statutory assessment for UICT has not yet been implemented. You can therefore choose to assess all of the pupils or a selection.

Yes, once you have assembled pupils' completed work, you should make a preliminary assessment and will then be asked to submit examples selected by CCEA from each of the levels you see represented. Your assessment will then be either confirmed or modified as a result of moderation.

ICT is now assessed as one holistic level. The previous strands no longer exist. As part of the NI Curriculum there are 'new' UICT Requirements and the levels have been rewritten in accordance with this.

No, you can choose how many of these your pupils experience. However for the purpose of the Portfolio for moderation your school is required to submit samples of work that provide evidence for at least five of these. Ideally you should aim to provide pupils with experiences that cover the breadth of uses to which ICT can be put.

For each level that your school wishes to award, you will have to submit three samples of work. However, if a single pupil is working at a certain level, you should submit the work for that level.

No, the Desirable Features give an indication of the sort of characteristics pupils may demonstrate during the course of an activity. Your planned activity may vary slightly from the statements in the Desirable Features, although it would be expected that pupils cover a majority of the bullet points for the chosen activity.

That depends on the extent of the task. Some tasks may involve just one set of Desirable Features. Others may incorporate several sets of Desirable Features. Regardless of the choices made by schools, the planned assessment tasks need to provide coverage of the 5 ’E’s.

Yes. The UICT tasks that you design will be most appropriate if they are matched the interests/abilities of your pupils. They will be most relevant if they fall naturally out of the learning and teaching in a variety of subject contexts.

No, e-safety does not need to be assessed. However, the reinforcement of e-safety and acceptable online behaviour is part of the requirements that must be covered with all pupils.

You can only award the levels your school has been accredited to award. If you anticipate that a small number will achieve higher levels then you need to submit examples of higher level work to have your judgement accredited.

The level awarded is an holistic level and represents the ‘best fit’ description of an individual’s skills. It will help you make your judgement if you have planned together with other contributing subjects so that the work is targeted at a specific range of levels.

The task writing tool is a menu driven form that can be used to quickly compile the documentation for your planned tasks. The completed task documentation can then be conveniently submitted for approval as part of the process of accrediting your level judgements.

Before entering the details you should have a task in mind. The task writing tool will not supply ideas or identify contexts for UICT work. It only formats your tasks. Much of the information can be completed by making a selection from drop-down menus, and specific details can be either typed directly in to the fields on the online form, or copied and pasted from your existing documentation.

Your task will be checked to see what coverage of the 5 ‘E’s is present and that the appropriate levels have been identified.

You can use a task that has been written by another school and approved by CCEA. However, you may need to modify the task to fit with the learning and teaching going on in your own school and also to ensure that it is appropriate to the ability levels of your own pupils.

The exemplification database is a collection of samples of pupil work. It can be found at www.ccea.org.uk. The samples cover a range of subject contexts, software, and tasks. You can use it to get an impression of standards, fi nd ideas for UICT activities relevant to your subject, or see what sort of approaches colleagues have been using.

The samples of work have been shared by schools and commentaries have been written by moderators. However, it is worth noting that none of these tasks have gone through the CCEA task approval process.

The exemplification database also includes some pieces of pupil work which came from the old IT scheme. They have been moderated against the new levels to give some sort of indication of what standard they might represent in the new ICT accreditation scheme.

The exemplification database is intended to showcase examples of good practice which have been shared by selective, non-selective and special schools. CCEA has tried to exemplify each of the 7 levels. However, some of the material in the database will have been produced before the process of task approval was initiated.

No, the examples can provide useful ideas, or a means to check the equivalence of ideas you are planning to shape in to tasks.

Yes, although you will need to adapt what you see to suit the situation/subject context in your own school and go through the process of submitting your adapted task for approval.

The exemplification database is not exhaustive. If there is nothing currently available that matches the situation in your school, look for examples pitched at a level of demand equivalent to what you intend to do. Also, consider submitting material from your own school for inclusion in the database as it grows over time.

The skills represented by the tasks used within the previous scheme can still be relevant to some pupils. However, you need to be sure that overall the tasks offered to pupils cover the 5 ‘E’s, and provide access to a range of levels. Existing tasks are likely to need some modification, and may represent a lower level than they would have merited in the previous scheme.