At Shrewsbury High School, Digital Learning is about culture rather than tools or technologies.
Our vision for digital learning is an embedded one, wherein students and staff are digitally skilled and confident in the use of technology. Students have access to our Virtual Learning Environment, Firefly, and in addition may use Microsoft packages such as OneNote for online learning in lessons. We have a wealth of software dedicated to supporting our students to thrive and achieve to their full potential.
During the national lockdown Shrewsbury High School switched immediately from lessons taught in the classroom, to Guided Home Learning (GHL) taught via Microsoft Teams from our homes. Our students, parents, and staff fed back through our GHL surveys that the enhanced use of technology allowed a new level of interactivity and engagement with lessons, and we must ensure that we bring our use of technology back to the class room.
It was with this in mind that we launched the next step in Shrewsbury High School’s whole school digital revolution and from September 2021 we became a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) school from Year 7 upwards. We firmly believe that students having their own devices to work on in school will put them in the driving seat, in terms of adapting their learning and enabling them to face the future with confidence. Our Digital Strategy puts our pupils firmly in the centre of all these plans.
Bringing devices into every classroom has many benefits to the all-round education that our school provides. Skills in digital literacy improve, independent learning thrives, potential participation barriers are removed, and our pupils’ learning becomes even more personalised.
Using technology can be part of an excellent lesson, but a lesson is not made excellent by the use of technology. Our students bring out their laptops to use software like Microsoft Class Notebook, where we can see a clear impact on the quality of learning. We are constantly evaluating and ensuring that our choices are beneficial.
The Microsoft 365 apps connect together across our school systems, and the school Wi-Fi network means that we can all work in the school cloud, sharing and collaborating, and moving easily between work at school and at home.
Our Junior pupils are flourishing when it comes to technology with 1:1 devices in our Junior School since September 2021.
Our approach across the school aims for sustainability, and seeks to be flexible enough to accommodate the variety of practices across our students, parents and teachers in order to adapt to future changes in the field of technology.
We seek to nurture digitally-literate students, parents and staff. Our teachers and support colleagues are encouraged to be innovative and reflective in their use of digital tools in order to optimise teaching and learning, contributing to the best possible outcomes for all of our pupils.
