How they will feel when they set up an discussion group - essentially an invitation to grouch to governors, will be worth watching. Inevitably, the pupils were enthused. They could use IT to structure their work and produce better offerings than usual. In several subjects, teachers prepared teaching materials and worksheet templates which pupils would work through on the network or Intranet - a local edition of the Internet. They could click their way to facts and activities about volcanoes, hydrology or whatever.
Pupils seem to have relished the taste of live, up-to date information from the Internet.
Teachers have been encouraged by the enviable facilities to change tack and use more resource based learning. Rather than an Internet project, they've found themselves in something more like a curriculum development project. The Highdown experience, where the number of IT experts has grown from a few to nearly twenty in a short time, is a germ of proof. Encouragingly for schools elsewhere, some of the benefits here would come from lesser technology. For example, they too can use IT, build Internet sites and school Intranets - indeed Microsoft is now giving away a disc full of tools to use.