Despite majority feeling confident over using IT, some members of the profession feel they are lagging behind

New research has shown that although 80 per cent of educational staff are confident about using IT (with an overall confidence average among respondents of 8.67 out of 10), there are still teaching professions that feel they are lagging behind.

Carried out at BETT 2006, the technology event for education, the survey revealed that headteachers and special educational needs teachers were the only two groups that displayed lower than average confidence scores, with 8.45 and 7.2 respectively.

The results suggest that key educational suppliers need to carefully monitor how they support and train those in specific roles, according to Martin Large, group chief executive at audiovisual distributor Steljes.

"IT has enabled such great advances in teaching children with learning difficulties that we must make sure teachers in that area feel as confident as the rest to make the most of the technology available," said Large. "As headteachers also show less confidence, we must work with our partners to ensure the standard of training excellence filters throughout the entire teaching staff, right to the top.”

Reuben Moore, advanced skills teacher at Lampton School in Hounslow and responsible for IT across the curriculum, added: “Training on IT needs to become more integrated into the rest of the school strategies in order for its effectiveness to match such high levels of confidence. Teachers are capable of using the technology – they now need to be learning how to apply it through real-world knowledge that puts IT at the heart of lesson planning.”