Finance
In a time when school budgets are under increasing pressure, Anson Primary found themselves having to carefully plan how they would be able to sustain the use of iPads across the School. Simon said:
“Due to our phased roll out programme, the refresh will also be able to happen in phases. This means that the costs for each refresh are much more manageable and can be factored into the budget or use devolved capital to complete a purchase. Any existing kit that we have is either repurposed for vulnerable and disadvantaged families, used for specific schemes in the school where core apps are run, or we trade in the devices using Academia’s ReviveIT programme.”
Staff development
Staff Development is key to success of anything you implement in a school. Initially, Anson Primary ran whole staff training sessions, but these were not to do with the technology. The most important factor to the success at Anson is that the people understood and shared the vision. Simon said:
“The school is special and unique in so many ways. Unless you understand why the vision exists at Anson and why we want to embed creativity across the curriculum you won’t really understand why Apple technology is the best to meet those aims.
We worked on understanding why creativity was important and what we can learn from the creative processes of artists, inventors and academics. We looked at how we should approach the design of our work space to allow for less cognitive load, more signal and less noise. We looked at our own creativity as a staff and where our strengths and areas for improvement lie.”
iPad wasn’t introduced to the staff until after these Vision and Plan sessions and then the training programme began. Simon said:
“We run a bespoke menu system of training which is available online and offline for our staff. Our menu systems run throughout the year and allow staff to drop in for 10 minutes, 30 minutes or one hour to pick up a new skill, a new idea and take it back to their classroom.”
Staff at Anson Primary School are encouraged to follow the Apple Teacher Programme. Apple Teacher is a free professional learning programme designed to support and celebrate educators using Apple products for teaching and learning. As an educator, you can build skills on iPad and Mac that directly apply to activities with your students, earn recognition for the new things that you learn and be rewarded for the great work you do every day. The Apple Teacher qualified staff at Anson Primary School are paired with non-Apple Teachers to support their improved practice and use of Apple technology in the classroom. Simon said: