As of the beginning of 2008 the school now has three computer rooms each with 34 computers in it.  These machines are upgraded (ie replaced) every 4 years to keep up with the changes in technology.  The new third room was only converted from a Biology Lab at the end of 2007 to our IT room for the boys who do Delphi programming in grades 10 – 12.  This means there are now enough rooms to enable teachers of other subjects to bring in their classes to research topics on the Internet, work on or learn other software packages such as PASTEL (Accounting), GIS (Geography), EXCEL (Maths), READ (English comprehension skills) etc.

The CAT course includes learning how to use MS WORD, EXCEL, ACCESS and POWER - POINT to an advanced level as well as some coding for Web page design.  We give the CAT learners the opportunity to write the theory section of the National Computer Olympiad as well as the CAT practical Olympiad exam.

The school offers the following Computer subjects to the following grades:

• Grade 8: every boy gets 1 hour a week of Computer Literacy to learn MS-WORD, MS-POWERPOINT and basic Internet research skills as part of the TECHNOLOGY Learning Area.
  
  
• Grade 9: every boy gets 1 hour a week of Computer Literacy to learn MS-EXCEL and basic logical skills as part of the TECHNOLOGY Learning Area.
  
  
• Grades 10 - 12: 4 hours a week of either Information Technology (IT - programming in Delphi) or Computer Application Technology (CAT - learning
  Application packages to an advanced level) depending on whether boys choose one of these subjects as part of the new FET phase.  We currently
  offer two classes in each subject to each grade.
  
  

The Computer Department consists of a teaching complement of 4 staff and a full time Computer technician.  The staff are:

• Barbara Heron (HOD of the Computer Subjects taught at Parktown and teacher of IT and Computer Literacy)
  
  
• Darren Saunders (HOD of the Computer department and all technical aspects of managing the network)
  
  
• Pieter Visser (teacher of  IT and Computer Literacy)
  
  
• Maria Sarelis (teacher of CAT and Computer Literacy)

CAT Olympiad

Parktown Boys' High School once again did the CAT Olympiad this year. We had 11 boys attempting the olympiad, and interesting enough, very few of them were actual CAT learners. Nevertheless, as can seen by the results table below, they fared amazingly well.

As 2nd time contenders in this olympiad, the boys are to be congratulated on a job well done!

Past Matric results:
2005: 30 boys wrote Computer Studies.
HG average of 78% (23 boys, 14 distinctions)
SG average of 76% (7 boys, 2 distinctions)

2006: 34 boys wrote Computer Studies.
HG average of 76% (27 boys, 14 distinctions)
SG average of 76% (7 boys, 2 distinctions)

2007: 24 boys wrote Computer Studies.
HG average of 74% (20 boys, 9 distinctions)
SG average of 72% (4 boys, 2 distinctions)

2008: 25 boys wrote IT  and  29 boys wrote CAT:
IT average of 80% (12 distinctions, 10 B’s)
CAT average of 63% (2 distinctions, 8 B’s)

Note:  There are no past results for CAT as yet, as 2008 is the first year that it’s being written as an FET subject.