Preparation for the face-to-face session
This preparation will take around 90 minutes. We will assume that you have completed this as the course facilitator will be addressing activities 1-3 at the beginning of the face-to-face session.
Activity 1 Registering for the Staffroom
Before the facilitated session, go to the e-skills Staffroom [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . From here you can register by clicking on the grey register button on the right side of the page. You will need to register your school for access to the Staffroom. There is a database of schools already available on the Staffroom. If your school is not listed, contact cc4ghelpdesk@e-skills.com as soon as possible, and at least four days before the facilitated session. Insert ‘Vital Course Registration’ as the subject of your email and your registration will be organised within 24 hours of receipt.
Activity 2 Exploring the Staffroom and the BigAmbition website
The objective of this course activity is to become more familiar with the layout and structure of the Staffroom and the BigAmbition website.
Enter the Staffroom and visit the 14-19 learning content area by using the drop down menu option on the right hand side of the page. Browse the learning journeys available and familiarise yourself with the structure of a learning journey and its component nuggets of learning.
Visit the BigAmbition website and click on one of the moving ‘cool companies’ logos which are located on the right side of the page. This will display information from the company chosen, but will also reveal the menu on the left hand side of almost 50 different employers who support BigAmbition. Browse the content available from these employers and reflect on how delivery of the Exploring organisations unit could draw upon these resources.
Activity 3 The specification for the Exploring organisations unit
The objective of this course activity is to familiarise yourself with the assessment requirements for the Exploring organisations unit.
The three awarding bodies that accredit the Diploma in IT are AQA/City and Guilds, Edexcel and OCR. You may have already made a decision about which of these boards you are using for the Diploma. Go to their website and look at the assessment criteria for the higher level Exploring organisations unit. You may already be familiar with this. If not, look at the four learning objectives that are assessed during this unit. These are summarised in Table 2.
| Learning objective | AQA/City and Guilds | Edexcel | OCR |
| LO.1 | Business functions, role and responsibilities within different types of organisation and how technology can support them | Know that organisations have different structures, cultures and roles | Understand different organisational structures, cultures and roles |
| LO.2 | Organisational cultures, values and goals within organisations | Understand the purpose of key business processes | Understand the purpose of key business processes |
| LO.3 | Business processes | Understand how and why technology is used to support business processes | Know how the use of technology supports business processes |
| LO.4 | Setting up and running a simulated mini-enterprise | Understand that a number of factors contribute to the success of a business | Be able to explore key factors in an organisation’s success |
Read through the details of your chosen awarding body specification in preparation for the section in the face-to-face session that reflects on how the Exploring organisations journey can be assessed using any of these criteria.
Principal learning objectives for higher level can be found in the following documents:
AQA/City and Guilds (page 29):
www.diplomainfo.org.uk/ documents/ IT_level_2_Principal_Learning_ammended.pdf
Edexcel (page 11):
OCR (page 11):
www.ocr.org.uk/ download/ kd/ ocr_9850_kd_diploma_centre_sec_12.pdf
Introduction