Software Policy

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The ICT Department -  Software Policy


“The use of a range of software help pupils to be able to make decisions and then choose the best piece of software for the job. This produces pupils with more questioning minds and the broad base of skills which are transferable between different software platforms.”


Mount Tamar School made a decision in 2003 to move from a proprietary software base to an open source software base. Since 2003 Mount Tamar School all the Network computers have had Gentoo Linux installed as the operating system with a choice of desktops being available to pupils.
In addition to the operating system all the software packages installed and available to pupils are opensource and, wherever possible, cross platform.


ICT Specific Links

  • DfES ICT Standards - [1]
  • Materials for Learning - [2]
  • Materials for Learning - [3]
  • BBC Revisewise - [4]
  • BBC Bitesize - [5]
  • BBC GCSE Bitesize - [6]

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Other Links

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The ICT Department -  Software Audit

Aspects of Software
Software is what makes the computer productive. Without software a computer would be useless. Software is installed onto the operating system of a computer and is accessed usually via a desktop.

As far as possible Mount Tamar School uses opensource software which is freely downloadable from the Internet. Staff and pupils are encouraged to download and use the same software both in school and away from school. Links to various software packages can be found from the software pages in this website or using the Internet to search for the software


Types of Software

On a computer software is categorised into the following:

  • Office software
  • Internet software
  • Games software
  • Development software
  • Graphics software

Office Software

  • pdf Reader
  • Evolution - organiser
  • Address book
  • Notes - for making notes
  • KOrganiser - organiser / calendar
  • Mozilla Thunderbird - email client
  • OpenOffice Suite - word processor, database, spreadsheet, drawing, presentation
  • Scribus - DTP
  • qCad - computer aided design

Games Software

  • Various game including:
  • Desktop funnies
  • Board games - both one and two player
  • Skills games
  • Educational games

Graphic Software

  • Blender - image manipulating
  • Inkscape - vector drawing
  • KolourPaint - pixel drawing
  • Picassa - image manipulating
  • Xara - vector graphics
  • Gimp - pixel image editing

Useful Links

The following link may be of use:

  • TBA


Internet Software

  • Mozilla Firefox - web browser
  • Mozilla Thunderbird - email client
  • Ekiga - telephony
  • Skype - audio and video comms
  • VNC - local computer viewer

Development Software

  • nVu - web development
  • Linguist - language development
  • KImageMapEditor - map editor
  • Quanta plus - web design

Mount Tamar Services Software

  • MediaWiki - web page content
  • Moodle - learning platform
  • Elgg - social networking platform
  • OpenMeetings - audio visual comms
  • Trafficlights - behaviourial management software

Other Software

  • Lives - multimedia editing
  • Audacity - sound editing
  • Kino - multimedia editing
Personal tools