The number will grow to more than 70 with the next Year 12 intake. The number studying around the world is more than 75,000. All the learning materials are available online, allowing students to dip in and out whenever they have access to the Internet, be it at school, home or the local library. Steve O'Neill believes this has cross-curricular benefits for students. If you want to go back to something later, you've got it there.
Online assessment is another innovative aspect of the programme.
As well as removing the burden of marking from teachers, it also lets students know as soon as they have finished a test where they have gone wrong. Running parallel to the theory are practical exercises where students work individually as well as in pairs or groups. In the first term they get a computer network up and running, and the tasks become progressively more sophisticated. In some deprived parts of the US, Cisco is said to be the only reason some students turn up for school. Not that they are confined to the school buildings.