However, the British Medical Association reported concerns from health care workers about PPE shortages, with nurses saying staff on some wards had no protective equipment.

Examples of PPE include aprons, gloves, surgical masks and eye protection.

One way independent schools are helping is by turning their design and technology (D&T) departments into PPE production lines.

Which independent schools are making PPE for the NHS?

Below are just some of the independent schools manufacturing PPE for health workers. There are many more doing their part across the whole of the UK.

England

North East

• Royal Grammar School Newcastle – using 3D printers to make visor parts, first 40+ visors have been collected by GPs, year 11 student producing four face screens a day using own 3D printer

Yorkshire and the Humber

• Ashville College – given Harrogate District Hospital 200 pairs of safety glasses from science lessons
• St Peter’s School – initially made five sample face masks for the approval of York Teaching Hospital Trust, given go ahead to produce more
• The Grammar School at Leeds – in full production mode with three printers making six masks an hour, donated over 330 pairs of protective goggles
• Bradford Grammar School – making full visors in DT, donating science safety goggles, thousands of disposable gloves donated to local GPs, opticians, care homes, etc.

West Midlands

• Denstone College – D&T team produced 50 visors initially, since been approached by five hospitals, GP surgeries, carers, nursing homes and funeral directors, currently out of polypropylene but more coming soon
• Bromsgrove School – producing face shields, 290 pairs of goggles delivered to County Hall for distribution

East Midlands

• Stamford Endowed Schools – started manufacturing 200 visors a day, now producing over 1,000 a day
• Oakham School – have made around 1,800 face shields and distributed them to NHS and local key workers
  Fundraising page: https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/TimWeston4
• Uppingham School – head of D&T has been using a laser cutter to create masks
  Donation page: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/clive-simmons
• Oundle School – D&T staff making PPE for front line NHS staff
• Repton School – DT department laser-cutting polypropylene headbands with acetate/PVC visor shields for local NHS hospitals, 100 gone to Derby Royal Hospital Hand Unit

South West

• Wellington School – D&T department producing facial visors using 3D printers
• Millfield School – laser cutters being used by staff, students and volunteers, have made 130 masks so far
• Cheltenham Ladies’ College – head of engineering has made 54 face shields by laser cutting and eight by 3D printing, as well as hands-free door openers
• Monkton Combe School – 3D printing protective masks
• Taunton School – machines operating 24/7 making visor clip components
• Plymouth College – 250 face shields made so far, request for 350 more from local NHS
• Prior Park College – DT department producing approx. 500 units per day, continuing over Easter, back orders of nearly 1,000 and increasing on a daily basis, produced and delivered over 1,500 visors
• Bryanston School – making protective face masks using 3D printers for local GPs and frontline NHS, D&T teachers making masks from scratch from home, demand increasing every day
• St Edward’s Cheltenham – IT infrastructure manager and D&T staff made over 50 3D printed protective visors so far and counting
• Sherborne School – producing visors for healthcare workers, now using 3D printers to produce prototype ventilator hose adaptors for NHS
• King’s College Taunton – working on a 3D print prototype door handle for Bournemouth Hospital, creating face shields
  Healthcare workers can order face shields via the 3DCrowdUK website
• King Edward’s School, Bath – making visors, first 100 masks have gone to The Avenue Surgery in Warminster
• Wishford Schools – making protectivehttps://www.3dcrowd.uk/ masks, kitted out three doctors’ surgeries with more to come
• Dauntsey’s – 250 masks have gone to frontline workers, more ready to go, the team produce about 100 a day
• Godolphin School – manufacturing face shields for Salisbury General Hospital
• Truro School – were able to make 90 re-usable shields in a day, distributed to surgeries, care homes and hospitals across mid-Cornwall

South East

• Abingdon School – making PPE visors, first batch of 200 distributed to local Abingdon surgeries, another 200 in the production line
• Elstree School – delivering aprons, gloves and masks by minibus around London
• Cranleigh School – design engineering team has been providing Perspex for creation of visors, over 100 goggles and 850 pairs of disposable gloves donated to Cranleigh Medical Centre
• Guildford High School – producing visors
• Tonbridge School – making protective masks
  Step-by-step manufacturing information: https://make-more-masks.com/
• Woldingham School – making protective face visors using 3D printers and donating goggles from science lessons
• Sutton Valence School – produced equipment for five GP surgeries and a special educational needs school
• Caterham School – making visors, science goggles and masks delivered to GPs
• The Oratory School – Design Lab have produced and fitted protective screens for reception areas at three surgeries, producing 16 face shields a day
• Cottesmore School – delivered PPE to a East Surrey and Sussex hospital
• Frensham Heights School – making face shields, staff sewing scrubs, washbags, hats and headbands
  If you need PPE, or want to help, visit: https://www.frensham.org/supportnhs/
• Headington School – producing protective face shields for Oxford
  The school is looking for more acetate sheets
• Eton College – D&T department creating visors for local hospitals, science department donated unused PPE supplies to local surgery
• Benenden School – making face shields for local frontline workers

East of England

• Royal Hospital School – face shields being produced, intend to make 200 over next couple of weeks, first batch sent to GP’s surgeries, local pharmacies, care homes and community health care workers in Ipswich
• Norwich School – now produced over 2,000 visors, delivered around 100 pairs of goggles and 30 boxes of gloves from the school’s science department
  The school has made available instructions, CAD design files and construction guidelines
• Ipswich School – made more than 150 visors for local healthcare workers, more being made
  Any local GPs who require more equipment, and schools with laser cutters which would like to have the design files, should contact the school at media@ipswich.school
• King’s Ely – head of D&T spending Easter break making face shields, recipients have included a hospital, GP surgeries, a pharmacy and a care home
• Queenswood School – onsite staff making masks for local care homes, stitching NHS-grade scrubs, current target is 1,000 masks and 30 sets of scrubs
  Donation page: https://bit.ly/Queenswood-PPE

Greater London

• Dulwich College – producing 150+ full face visors a day, distributed to hospitals, surgeries, care homes, hospices and latterly pharmacies, five 3D printers supplied by James Allen’s Girls’ School, distributed 650+ pre-existing eye protection
• Merchant Taylors’ School – making visors using five 3D printers
• Godolphin and Latymer School – have supplied 135 pairs of protective lab goggles to care homes in Hounslow
• Kingston Grammar School – made 100 PPE visors in the first day
• Latymer Upper School – using 3D printers to make visors, already created and delivered 90 visors, orders for 500 units from GP surgeries and hospitals
• Hampton School – initially started making component parts for face shields using 3D printers, now using laser cutters to mass-produce face shields for frontline workers, donated 350 safety goggles to NHS
• St Paul’s Girls’ School – donated 150 full eye cover safety goggles to a hospital, sending nitrile gloves and 25 pairs of safety specs to a care home, also sending nitrile gloves, overshoes and 50 safety specs to local services
• St Margaret’s School, Bushey – donated goggles, gloves and protective face shields
• St Dunstan’s College – making face masks and visors for the NHS using laser cutter

Scotland

• Kelvinside Academy – have made over 500 protective face visors at onsite NuVu Innovation School using 3D printers and laser cutters, which have been donated to local hospitals and care facilitates
  The school is looking for donations of 3-4mm acrylic sheets dimensions: 1000mm by 600mm, A4 acetate 200 microns and Scotch magic tape. If you can help, please email david.miller@kelvinside.org or call the school switchboard on 0141 357 3376
• Dollar Academy – made over 100 visors which have been distributed to local GPs and hospitals
  Able to respond to additional requests for visors on their Facebook page

Wales

• Rydal Penrhos – now using six 3D printers to make 100 sets of protective masks per day for NHS staff and keyworker facilities across the region
  The school is looking for a second 3D printer and donations so they can increase production. Donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/sarah039s-campaign-for-rydal-penrhos-limited

We have been inundated with schools manufacturing PPE – you can find many more on Twitter by searching terms like #PPE

The post Which independent schools are making PPE for the NHS? appeared first on Independent Education Today.

A number of independent schools responded quickly when closures looked likely, with advanced digital training for teachers.

Royal Hospital School (RHS), one of the top EdTech 50 schools in the UK, is an Apple Training Centre. Pupils have been using school-provided iPads to access resources in lessons for the past five years.

Now at home, pupils are logging on for lessons and interacting with teachers through audio or messaging, with Microsoft Teams also being used to deliver the usual timetable, bar PE lessons.

Lessons are also being recorded for children in different time zones. The school said this week 108 of its teachers will teach 750 pupils in 138 countries online.

Keeping to a ‘normal’ school day routine

At Bede’s, remote lessons are being delivered with a similar structure to the school day, accounting for breaks and lunchtimes. Director of IT Steve Blake told IE no one technology has been used for remote learning but rather a “coordinated approach has been developed using the best features from a range of options”.

He said: “Our approach allows for real-time intervention and guidance as pupils work on documents or resources and personalised digital feedback following pupil submission.

“Pupils have a range of Bede’s created video content (science experiments for example) available catering for a range of learning styles and pastoral care continues using a range of digital media.

“Teachers can use online whiteboard technology to mimic the classroom experience with the added benefit of being able to save anything created for future reference.”

The school said this week 108 of its teachers will teach 750 pupils in 138 countries online

The school’s online learning platform helps pupils and teachers organise, distribute, collect and feed back, but Blake said the teaching staff have proved to be a “creative powerhouse” in using technology to deliver a rich experience for pupils.

A remote learning guide for parents has also been shared on the school’s website.

Tips include keeping to a ‘normal’ school day routine, with task deadlines and regular breaks away from screens; encouraging your child to interact with their friends via video chats; and communicating with your child throughout the day about their school work to help keep them on track.

Watch how Canford School is getting to grips with remote learning

‘As little interruption as possible’

Wellington School are using Firefly as their learning platform, as well as Microsoft Stream to film lessons and Microsoft Teams for online chat. Pupils log on every morning at 8:30am for a tutor meeting, whilst the school remains open for children of key workers, providing care from 8am-6pm.

The school said it is proving “hugely successful”, with some pupils even putting on suits for online lessons.

“Wherever possible, the timetable and curriculum will remain unchanged, just a little flexible,” said headmaster Eugene du Toit.

“The intended outcome is that the learning of our students progresses with as little interruption as possible. Where they have a PE lesson, they should be out in the garden kicking a football, where they have music, they continue to practice as normal.”

He added: “Wellington School is not defined by whether or not we are all in one place at the same time. We are defined by our sense of community, the lengths we go to in supporting one another, our indefatigable spirit in rising to a challenge.

“We are in this together and we will get through this together.”

The post Independent schools begin first week of remote learning appeared first on Independent Education Today.

But the majority of teachers are already suffering under enormous workloads, with one report revealing that 68% of ex-teachers left the profession due to an unmanageable volume of work.

With concerns that this could increase further as more look to leave teaching, schools need to start finding ways to help daily tasks become more manageable for their teaching staff so they can spend more time doing what they’re fundamentally trained to do: teach.

So, here are seven time-saving features to support your teaching staff:

1. Take the register anywhere

Give your teachers on-the-go access to quickly record class and group attendance, marking students as present, absent or late in just a few taps via their mobile device.

Our iTeacher App gives teachers the freedom to take registers anywhere and at any time, whether it’s in the classroom, on the playing field, or out and about on a school trip.

2. Check timetables quickly

Provide teachers with instant access to details of their current, next and future lessons, with clear visibility of their full timetable via their mobiles, iPads or other portable devices.

In the iTeacher App teachers can view key timetable information quickly and easily, including additional filtering by teacher, student, room, department, grade, year or set. This means they can quickly identify which lesson a student should be in or find a colleague.

3. Organise substitute teachers

These timetabling features give teachers the power to not only view their own timetables and those of their peers, but they also ensure quick access to substitution timetables where they can identify all rooms and teachers that are available within any given period. This will significantly improve the efficiency of organising cover for lessons, alleviating the inevitable back and forth email exchange between teachers and admin staff.

4. Send important communications

Sharing information with the right people as soon as possible is one of the biggest challenges schools face, especially as they grow and expand across multiple sites.

That’s why the iTeacher App enables teachers to send emergency broadcasts instantly to staff, students and parents via email and SMS, directly from their mobiles. With this integrated communications feature, it’s never been easier to share key information with students and colleagues as soon as things happen.

You also have the option to send helpful system messages and free push notifications to keep other teachers updated with important student information, school news and timetable changes.

5. View student profiles

We understand how important it is for your teachers to keep in touch with the progress of each of their students and year groups, which is why we’ve developed features that make student profiles readily available for teachers to view at any given time.

The iTeacher App helps teachers access academic, pastoral, medical and emergency contact information whenever they need it. Plus, the iFeed feature provides updates on any significant changes facing a student or group of students in that teacher’s care. In flagging this, it’s much easier for your teaching staff to support or reward students and address any issues as they’re raised.

6. Award commendations and assign penalties

Another vital aspect of school life, teachers are often unable to issue commendations and penalties to students instantly and instead have to set a reminder to do this at the end of the school day.

Now, using their iTeacher App, teachers can record commendations and/or penalties immediately or whenever it’s most convenient for them, using the Reward & Conduct functionality available within the iSAMS system. They can also quickly log any accidents and incidents, informing relevant staff members as soon as they occur.

7. Write and review school reports on the go

School reports are renowned for being a particularly arduous but vital task for your teachers, so why not support them with this by giving them the ability to write and submit grades, assessments and school reports wherever they are.

With the iReport App, an ideal pairing to our iTeacher App, your teachers are able to: write school reports, input assessment grades, view the status of each report, mark reports as draft, incomplete or ready for proof reading, view students’ past grades, and write and review any accompanying comments before submitting them.

This gives your teaching staff the opportunity to manage their time even more efficiently by completing time-consuming report writing tasks more quickly and at their own convenience.

How has this nifty app helped support teachers so far?

At iSAMS one of our key aims is to support your teachers, and we launched the iTeacher App specifically to help make day-to-day classroom tasks easier for them. With this intuitive app, it’s now possible for teachers to complete 70% of their daily tasks on-the-go, directly from their mobile device.

“Sherborne Girls was an early adopter of the iSAMS product and we have been very happy with how the product range has grown. The new iTeacher App allows teachers to register a class on their iPad, and to search and find pupil data information quickly,” says Louise Orton, deputy head of teaching and learning at Sherborne Girls.

Sherborne Girls was an early adopter of the iSAMS product and we have been very happy with how the product range has grown

Without having to rifle through reams of paperwork or find an available school computer and wait for it to power up, your teachers can get hold of all the information you need with just a few taps on their mobile or tablet. Just imagine how much more your teachers could do with that extra time…

“iSAMS is the most intuitive, flexible and user-friendly school MIS that I have come across in my career so far. They are progressive and up-to-date with the latest technologies and recently, with the release of their apps, it has positively transformed the way we manage various in-house processes,” says Benoy Ittyavirah, director of IT at Wycliffe College.

Interested in saving your teachers valuable time and maximising the use of your school management information system to support them? Visit www.isams.com

The post Seven ways to save your teachers time every week appeared first on Independent Education Today.

The DQ Institute (DQI) surveyed almost 150,000 young people, spread across 30 countries, as it spent three years compiling what it claims is the world’s first real-time child online safety index (COSI).

Sixty per cent of children aged eight to 12 were found to be exposed to one or more forms of cyber risk, constituting what the DQI says is a “cyber pandemic”.

“The child online safety index should serve as a wake-up call to everyone about the safety of the world’s children online,” said DQI founder, Dr Yuhyun Park.

Everyone in society has a role to play in turning this around

The COSI found that:

• 45% of online children across the surveyed countries are affected by cyber bullying
• 39% experience reputational risks
• 29% are exposed to violent and sexual content
• 28% experience cyber threats
• 17% experience risky contact, such as offline meetings with strangers
• 13% are at risk of a gaming disorder
• 7% are at risk of a social media disorder

Japan is claimed to be the safest country for children online, with less than a quarter (24%) exposed, and Thailand the most problematic with more than three-quarters (79%) under threat.

“No nation, even those ranked highly, has cause for complacency,” warned Park. “What we are witnessing is a global cyber-pandemic with high exposure to multiple forms of online risks threatening children across all the countries we surveyed.”

The COSI used six measures to determine online safety levels, with nation-by-nation findings including:

• Cyber risk – Spain rated best, followed by Australia, with Thailand ranking worst
• Disciplined digital use – A look at social media and gaming frequency, mobile phone ownership and screen time. Japan came first, with eight-19 year-olds spending 24 hours a week looking at screens, almost half the time (44 hours) attributed to the lowest rated Dominican Republic
• Digital competency – Or young people’s ability to use tech safely and responsibly. India was ranked first and, again, Thailand last
• Guidance and education – Rating advice and protection from schools and parents. Egypt rated best, Indonesia worst
• Social infrastructure – Assessing a state’s policies for child online protection, together with ethical industry practices. The United States was ranked first, Nepal last
• Connectivity – Ease of online access. Singapore placed first, with Nepal coming last

The COSI will be updated in real-time, as countries evolve digital citizenship initiatives and child online safety policies. This, says DQI, should help states coordinate more effectively and lead to global progress.

“Everyone in society has a role to play in turning this around,” added Park. “Businesses, from social media and telecommunications to hardware and gaming companies, should make child online safety a core business principle. Companies should also partner with schools to help tackle cyber bullying. And governments must back stronger digital education.

“Most importantly, parents must be aware that they can make changes and reduce online harm. Helping children discipline their digital use from an early age is a necessary starting point for mitigating cyber risks. Primary schools also must teach students digital citizenship as part of their standard curriculum.”

You may also like: Ellie Proffitt from Childnet discusses how to start a conversation in school about online safety

The post Nearly two-thirds of children exposed to cyber risk appeared first on Independent Education Today.

Headmistress at Falcons School for Girls Sara Williams-Ryan said: “The pupils have loved experimenting with the new music technology software and are extremely excited to try lots of different ICT skills!

“The Creation Station complements the use of iPads and laptops in their other subjects. We are keen to ensure that our pupils have access to the very latest technology, to support our belief that children will flourish if we engage and challenge learners at every opportunity.”

The new area complements the multiple specialist spaces available at the school for teaching creative and scientific subjects such as a science laboratory, art room, drama studio – complete with props and staging – and a music room.

Falcons School for Girls is located in the conservation area of Woodborough Road, Putney.

To find out more about Falcons School for Girls, visit: www.falconsgirls.co.uk

The post Falcons School for Girls unveils Creation Station appeared first on Independent Education Today.

The students will build, program and control LEGO robots for a series of environmentally-themed missions to discover what engineers can do to create a cleaner, more sustainable world.

As part of the challenge, the teams will build a LEGO^® MINDSTORMS^® Education EV3 robot and program it to complete a speed and control test and perform a set of tasks such as planting a tree.

Students will also present an idea of how engineers can help future-proof the world.

Dr Hilary Leevers, CEO of EngineeringUK (the company behind the challenge), said: “We’ve seen young people around the world coming together to demand action over climate change. The next generation can be part of the solution by choosing engineering careers that will be central to generating affordable and sustainable energy, and to solving other global challenges that they care about, like access to clean water and sanitation. We need creative thinkers with a range of skills and perspectives working together to secure our future.

“The new environmental challenge was chosen for the Tomorrow’s Engineers EEP Robotics Challenge to address an issue that many of us are passionate about and inspire students as they discover exciting new skills and careers in engineering, technology, robotics and computing.”

Teachers also benefit from taking part with professional development training days and online mentoring.

Since its launch in 2015, over 32,000 students and 1,000 teachers have taken part.

In 2018/19, there were over 130% more applications than places.

To express an interest in taking part in the Robotics Challenge in 2020/21, visit: https://robotics.tomorrowsengineers.org.uk/robotics

The post Environmentally-themed robotics challenge begins appeared first on Independent Education Today.

Now that schools have to comply with GDPR, software to help schools manage the enormity of pupil data has proved essential. Portsmouth High School, and over 9,000 other schools, have invested in a piece of software called the Child Protection Online Management system, which allows them to monitor child protection, safeguarding and a whole range of pastoral and welfare issues. Members of staff can message each other on a need-to-know basis without worrying the email might go to the wrong person.

Reflecting on the importance of such investments, deputy chief executive officer of the Independent Schools Association Peter Woodroffe says: “Background infrastructure and admissions software is essential for the smooth running of any school, and schools need to be aware of two important issues before choosing a new product.

“Firstly, they need to ensure that the system is set up correctly for the independent school’s system, as there are regulatory requirements for admissions and staff recruitment that schools cannot afford to get wrong. Secondly, with a new system, the more time that is spent at the start, in understanding and populating the system, as well as in training the staff, will reap dividends in the future; these systems need to be implemented effectively, as otherwise they can prove to be more of a hindrance than a help.” 

Overcoming challenges

There’s no doubt that independent schools face particular challenges when it comes to getting their supporting technology right. Often based in older buildings on sites that may be large and spread out, it can be a challenge to get systems that talk to one another rather than working in silos.

At Cheltenham Ladies’ College, a new telephone system was needed.

Like many boarding schools, it is on a big, distributed site and parents, pupils and staff rely on it being available 24/7. Mat McMahon, network manager at the college, reports the effort that has been put into finding the right solution.

He says: “We wanted to go VoIP [voice over IP] but had heard horror stories from some schools we spoke to. For this reason and to get best value for money, we looked at a large number of companies and systems before choosing swcomms.” Staff now use a PC to control their phones from their desktops. They can search the dial-by-name directory, enter any telephone number or copy and paste from any application, establish and handle calls, and view the status of their colleagues from their computer.

Fads come and go, but as a teacher, I know that the most important part of education is the process of learning itself

A further trend is in investments of technology for teaching and learning, with a vast range available to schools.

Woodroffe says: “The huge push in coding and computing over the last 10 years has helped develop this market. Schools can invest in robotics systems, many have abandoned paper textbooks and moved to interactive electronic ones, and many schools have fully embraced the one-device-per-pupil ethos.”

The focus on STEM subjects has seen a greater push across independent schools for pupils to achieve in this area, with schools like The Queen’s School in Chester offering computer science A-level and others welcoming-in tech entrepreneurs to inspire pupils, as Ratcliffe College did in autumn 2019. St Faith’s School in Cambridge has run a hugely popular holiday ‘multi-hack’ course with pupils experimenting with Raspberry Pi and BBC micro:bit computers.

Schools are also encouraging teams to enter awards such as the CyberFirst Girls competition which aims to support girls interested in a career in cybersecurity and was entered last year by 841 schools across the UK. The competition saw a number of independent schools reach its top 10 teams.

Curriculum integration

Some independent schools are investing in maker kits that use simple computers that anyone can use to design, code and create just about anything. They are proving popular with independent schools keen to get their pupils thinking outside the box.

Head of content at pi-top Andrew Webb explains: “With the technology, learners choose a problem and design a solution, often with a real-world link, like how a robotic guide dog might work.

“Having written code, designed their solution and tested it, they then iterate to improve that solution. These are the skills that children need for life. To that end, we encourage schools to use pi-tops in an integrated way across the curriculum, not simply in silos into IT classes, for example.”

This is all happening in the face of a declining trend for IT nationally; in 2018, 130,000 students got a GCSE in either computer science or ICT, down from 140,000 the previous year after the phasing out of the less demanding ICT qualification.

But beyond the STEM curriculum technology is also making waves in how independent school pupils learn, and helping schools to deliver that all-important personalised curriculum that helps them stand out from the crowd. Mike Buchanan, executive director of the Headmasters and Headmistresses’ Conference, recently told TES magazine that his organisation is collaborating with an artificial intelligence (AI) company to produce a personalised learning portfolio for 16-year-olds to use as proof of their work and skills. 

Former teacher David Camilleri is a maths specialist at CENTURY Tech, a teaching and learning platform.

He explains the value of AI for learning: “Using AI to aid teaching allows students to receive a personalised learning experience that treats them as individuals.

“With each teacher being responsible for teaching sometimes upwards of 100 students, this would be difficult, if not impossible, without technology. AI means that classroom teaching can be more reactive to the student’s individual needs.

“This is also true of when a student is studying at home or in their own time, making it a more holistic way to improve education.”

There’s no doubt that independent schools face particular challenges when it comes to getting their supporting technology right

What to invest in

So what should schools consider investing in this year? Camilleri says: “Fads come and go, but as a teacher, I know that the most important part of education is the process of learning itself. Focus on what is proven to improve the way children learn. Look for solutions that enable the human aspect of teaching to flourish.”

Jane Prescott, the Girls’ Schools Association’s incoming president for 2020, and head of Portsmouth High School GDST, agrees.

She says: “Wise investment is in anything that makes processes easier and simple. That can range from programs that help with admission procedures, trips and visits and checking the suitability of staff. Of equal importance is software that supports learning, from specialist subject interactive systems to platforms for collaborative learning.”

Woodroffe adds: “Also, it is not always necessary to spend thousands on technology. Many schools are finding wonderfully innovative ways to excite children at low cost to the schools.” 

An example is Oxford High School’s very own online course, designed to help sixth formers transition to university life. Their partnership with the Open University’s digital platform, FutureLearn, gives sixth formers an online course which focuses on how to make the transition from school to university smoothly with topics such as budgeting, time management, interview technique and negotiation skills. It functions like a MOOC but is tailored specifically to the school pupils’ needs.

Nevertheless, across the independent school sector, it’s clear that the focus of investment remains on teaching, learning and pastoral care, and not on the technology for its own sake.

Woodroffe says: “I suspect there are a reasonable number of parents who will be ‘wowed’ by a dedicated and flashy looking suite of machines. However, parents and pupils need to be careful to see what pupils are actually doing with the machines, and ideally, talk to the existing pupils themselves to find out whether the implementation is effective. 

“Investing in high-quality and passionate staff is of far greater importance. If the pupils are not inspired and enthused, as well as guided professionally, then the investment will be wasted, and pupils with be discouraged and put off,” he says.

Prescott agrees: “Technology supports school-based learning – it does not replace it.” The future looks bright for schools which are prepared to see tech as an enabler of, not a replacement for, intelligent humans.

You might also like: ‘Technology will create superteachers, not replace them’

The post Supporting learning with technology appeared first on Independent Education Today.

What’s new at Bett 2020?

A bigger, better Bett

Advancing education is what Bett is all about. We’ll once again be providing a platform to push the sectoral conversation further.

Over 34,000 educators and leaders from the UK and overseas will be there, ready to engage with more than 800 edtech suppliers, SMEs and start-ups. What’s more, we’ve arranged a line-up of 300 of the most influential figures in teaching and learning today.

An unrivalled guest speaker agenda

The educators, leaders and edtech pioneers you need to hear from are coming exclusively to Bett UK this year. We pride ourselves on giving our visitors the chance to hear from those changing the way we think about education and technology – and that’s exactly what we’re offering in 2020.

The first wave of speakers includes globally recognised figures and the finest educational minds in Britain, including:

●  Linda Liukas
Author of Hello Ruby and tech evangelist.
Presenting in the Bett Arena, 23 January 2020, 10.45: One Hundred Languages

●  Professor Daniel Muijs
Head of research, Ofsted.
Presenting in the Education Show Theatre, 25 January 2020, 11.30: Broad and Balanced curriculum

●  Arjana Blazic
Teacher trainer, Croatian Ministry
of Education.
Presenting in the Schools Theatre, 23 January 2020, 17.30: International TeachMeet

●  Dr Sue Black
Professor of computer science and technology evangelist, Durham University.
Presenting in the Bett Arena, 24 January 2020, 10.45: If I can do it so can you

●  Jos Finer
Head of organisational and staff development, University of St. Andrews.
Presenting in the Higher and Further Education Theatre, 23 January 2020, 16.40: Mentoring without walls

●  Carol Allen
Education advisor for ICT and inclusion, Hartlepool LA.
Presenting in the Schools Theatre, 23 January 2020, 13.15: Supporting children with speech, language and communication needs followed by, at 16.00: Whole school SEND strategy and planning

●  Bart Verswijvel
Senior advisor, European
Schoolnet Partnership.
Presenting in the Schools Theatre, 23 January 2020, 17.30: International TeachMeet

Check out the full agenda and our speakers updates at bettshow.com

The Education Show at Bett

For the first time in Bett’s history, we will be integrating The Education Show fully inside the event in the North Hall.

Hundreds of suppliers will be there, showcasing the products essential for the health and wealth of educational institutions around the world.

We’ll also be offering accredited CPD-led sessions, covering a wide range of topics on educators’ needs in the brand-new Education Show Theatre, for a complete picture of modern education.

Six new inspirational content themes

We have introduced six new themes to structure the conference programme, ensuring every learner and educator can benefit from this year’s content. They include:

● Innovation In pedagogy and in technology. Discover smart solutions to some of the biggest challenges facing teaching at all ages in a variety of settings

● Wellbeing For students and staff.

We will present case studies of initiatives to enhance student and teacher wellbeing

● Empowering teaching and learning Leadership strategies for driving organisational change; best practice to ensure impact, efficacity and use of technology; and sharing research and collaborating to ensure evidence-based practice

● Inclusion, social mobility and SEND Engaging the socially and economically disadvantaged with education; empowering and connecting students with SEND to learning, skills and future employment; enabling learning for communities in rural areas and developing countries

● Future tech and trends The heart of Bett. Where the tech community demonstrates new ideas and where educators can feed back what they really want and need

● Skills Skills for educators including practical CPD; skills for students including T-levels and apprenticeships; skills for life including re-educating current workforce, creativity, character and resilience.

Our newly appointed advisory board, made up of industry experts, has steered our content in the right direction and made sure our finger is firmly on the pulse when assessing the latest developments in the education industry.

“Bett provides a hub to connect together like-minded and engaged educators around technology,” says advisory board member, Jon Audin of the University of Winchester.

“Once a year, everything that you need around the field of edtech and its use can be found under one roof. With talks, teachers, students and companies sharing the latest practice and ideas it encourages the searching questions of whether this technology will make a difference to students we teach.”

Expanding Bett’s CPD offer

Teacher and leader development is essential to what Bett is all about.

With this in mind, the event’s programme of educator-led sessions has been expanded. In 2020, you’ll find more CPD-driven content than ever before.

Visitors will benefit from a diverse range of peer-to-peer learnings, insights and expertise. We have also invested in fresh CPD-focused features, including the launch of the Professional Development Theatres, offering free workshops to educators of all levels.

Better navigation for a higher return on time

We know. Bett is busy. Very busy. Getting a strong return on your time is vitally important.

It will be easy to navigate around Bett 2020. The floorplan has been simplified, making it simple to find the solutions, products and partners you want to see, have better, productive conversations, and take back better technology and learnings to your schools.

The show is now split into six different events zones each with a different focus:

●  The Education Show Making every part of an institution successful

●  Equipment and hardware The physical stuff. The technology relevant to everyone in education

●  Management solutions Technology to run institutions from across the education landscape

●  Teaching tech Technology helping teachers do what they do best

●  Learning tech Technology that needs to be learnt, relevant to the classroom

●  Global showcase Best-in-class for those global industry bodies, associations and non-profit organisations.

Further networking opportunities at Bett

Bett 2020 will have more networking opportunities onsite, with a staff room for educators to have space to discuss the content sessions they’ve experienced and reflect upon what’s inspired them.

On top of this, we have the Connect@Bett networking app, which will enable visitors to set up meetings with relevant exhibitors and fellow educators to help them maximise their time.

Join us at the latest instalment on 22–25 January 2020 at the London ExCeL.

Register now: www.bettshow.com/visiting-bett/bett-2020-visitor-registration

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The event, designed to offer engaging learning in science, technology and engineering, was attended by 300 pupils aged 12-13, from more than 30 schools.

TeenTech was co-founded in 2008 by Maggie Philbin, the former Tomorrow’s World television presenter.

“TeenTech is designed to help young teens and their teachers to see how science and technology cut across all areas of life,” she said of the charity.

“From interactive experiments to in-depth discussions with industry experts, events such as this are a powerful motivation for students entering a critical time of academic study, whether within the International Baccalaureate or GCSE curriculums.”

You may also like: “Technology will create superteachers, not replace them,” says founder of CENTURY Tech, Priya Lakhani

Philbin was in attendance to see students participate in a range of challenges designed to hone skills such as teamwork and problem-solving.

Tasks included coding a robot to break into a bank vault and designing a machine to automatically sort recycling.

Pupils also had the opportunity to ask questions of representatives from companies including BAE Systems, the Bank of England, Network Rail and JVCKenwood.

“We want to ensure our students feel ready to take on the challenges of the future,” said school head, Barnaby Sandow.

“Bringing together so many schools with leaders in industry, will help engage our young people in the possibilities of science and technology for the next generation.”

The post Surrey school hosts TV star’s technology festival appeared first on Independent Education Today.

With the possibility of additional resources and further funding uncertain, it seems that in the meantime schools are going to have to look elsewhere to offer their members of staff more support.

Can technology help to reduce workloads?

At iSAMS, we don’t just believe it’s reasonable to expect technology to support us with these challenges, but that it’s increasingly necessary.

The requirements of the education community are continually evolving and edtech needs to adapt with it to ensure that it can keep meeting the needs of education professionals around the world. One such example at the core of every school or college is a management information system (MIS).

Every school needs an MIS of some kind to function effectively. So, regardless of which system you use, why not maximise its impact to ensure it does as much as possible to help reduce the workload of every member of your school?

Heads and deputy heads of school

Sitting on the senior management team, your heads and deputies face a huge amount of pressure among those responsible for your school’s overall success. To help ensure its continued growth and development, they require quick access to the crucial information they need to support them in their decision-making processes.

It would therefore be helpful to look for an MIS that offers you top level reporting functionality, with the option to drill down into more detailed information where needed. Something like the iSAMS interactive dashboard will give you an instant overview of key insights, whilst enabling you to easily navigate into more granular detail on a variety of custom reports on financial information, staff management, academic performance and more.

(Click on image to enlarge)

In addition to this, being able to access this information remotely, wherever your headteachers are in the world and whenever they need to, is a big bonus.

As Marcel Blackbeard, group ICT manager at Braeburn Schools Limited said: “Having a centralised system, like iSAMS, that can be accessed anywhere, whether you’re in or outside of school, is not to be underrated. It’s really useful, both for my team and other staff members, that you only need a supported browser to access the system at home.”

Not only does this save huge amounts of time, as your heads of school no longer need to be on site to view essential school information, but it also makes it even easier to communicate with staff and parents as needed.

Finance managers

The backbone of your school community, your bursars are also pivotal to the day-to-day running and future success of your school. The problem is that often your school’s MIS and financial systems run in isolation, without options to fully integrate them.

This can lead to duplicated work, inputting details into two systems, and increases the chance of any errors that may emerge in the process.

That’s why we recommend supporting your finance team by improving the efficiency of your financial budgeting, reporting and forecasting, with a fully integrated system that helps you effectively track and monitor your finances all year round.

Not only would a full system integration help significantly with some of the daily challenges your finance team face, but so would automating some core processes such as paperless POs and invoicing, enabling key stakeholders to see live budget statuses, creating pre-defined and fully-interactive reporting, and retaining clear paper trails to help trace expenditure.

Making use of every one of these features with a comprehensive accounting system such as iFinance from iSAMS, Michael Coles, bursar at St Edward’s Cheltenham, said: “iFinance has enabled us to have better reporting, particularly at management and board level, which has meant that we’re able to make better strategic decisions.

“It’s also given me greater ability to place my hands on the relevant information I need, making it much easier and quicker to see where key figures come from.”

IT directors

As an IT director, an awful lot of your time can quickly become engrained in sourcing and granting access to information for other members of staff. So, to alleviate some of this, it makes sense for you to empower staff members to get hold of their own records and data.

Not only does this provide you with wider-reaching solutions for multiple stakeholders across the school, but it could save you and your team valuable time.

As Ben Whitaker, head of IT services at Bury Grammar School, discovered: “It’s not just my team benefitting from their time being saved by iSAMS. It’s now so quick and easy to access data, members of staff across our schools can get all the information they need directly from the MIS.”

Beyond this, many of your key concerns will surround the efficient management and protection of the large quantities of data held across your school or group of schools. However, this is also something that could be effectively managed by a holistic MIS.

That’s one of the reasons that, in keeping with the latest technology available, we’ve introduced 2FA and features to protect staff members from using known breached passwords, amongst other enhanced security features to assist with ensuring your school’s information is secure.

With support in minimising security risks and the ability to set permissions across the school community so staff, students and parents can instantly access the information they need, your IT directors will be able to dedicate their time to other essential tasks.

Teachers

Teachers are always on the front line, supporting their students throughout school in their journey to higher education. Facing daily pressure, which often extends beyond school hours, effective MIS technology and supporting apps can be fundamental to supporting your teaching staff with their workloads.

First and foremost, making it even easier to access key information can significantly reduce the time spent on lengthy administrative tasks so teachers can focus on what they’re fundamentally there to do: teach. The data and exams manager at Aylesbury Grammar School, Chris King, said that since introducing their chosen MIS, iSAMS, “data management has been far easier for all our staff members, including lesson by lesson registration” and “the ease of use is really appreciated by our teachers”.

With functionality enabling teachers to take the register, input and amend student information, communicate with parents and colleagues, monitor student wellbeing and write school reports – all on desktop and/or mobile devices – an all-inclusive technology offering is a huge help for rebalancing workloads so they’re more manageable for your teachers.

Marketing and admissions

In charge of onboarding new students and processing their applications, your marketing and admissions teams are an essential part of your school’s ongoing growth and progression. However, this can often involve some of the most labour-intensive paperwork going at school.

Working with paper is hugely time-consuming, as it’s harder to organise, involves more time-consuming processes and makes it more difficult to find key information when you need it. That’s why looking for a paperless, online solution is so important; you can save hours each month that would otherwise have been spent looking for and replacing files.

Combining an online platform to manage your school’s admissions process and a module which seamlessly syncs our admissions portal and MIS, our unique Admissions package gives you everything you need to take back control over every aspect of the admissions process and make consistent record-keeping fully automated.

It’s not just your admissions team that’ll benefit from moving web-based either. Your marketing team can design a fully branded and customisable admissions form that’s hosted on your school’s own website, so you can collect and the important information you need from prospective parents and ensure your brand is recognisable from the very beginning.

iSAMS understands that an MIS is never going to be able to replace the hard work that your staff members do day in, day out, but the right MIS and supporting apps could transform the way information is shared and accessed across your school community.

By investing in edtech such as this and maximising the use of a platform like iSAMS, you could save your staff huge amounts of time and alleviate some of their daily stresses by automating administrative processes and reducing the duplication of work, so they can focus on other key tasks and responsibilities.

For more details, contact sales@isams.com, call +44 (0) 1604 659 100 or book a demo.

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