Ribblesdale High School
Ribblesdale High School, in Clitheroe, Lancashire, is a Microsoft Training Academy in the UK and this status reflects a continuing commitment to embracing technology to enhance the quality of learning.
Given Ribblesdale High School’s Training Academy status, it comes as no surprise to discover that the school has a one-to-one device scheme, using Windows 10 devices and supported by a range of Office 365 applications. The approach, though, is careful and gradual. Five years ago, teachers’ desktop pcs were replaced by Windows laptops, in a step towards the concept of mobile learning and the transition and transformation in the use of technology has just snowballed.
Ribblesdale’s Journey
The journey for Ribblesdale started a number of years ago with the aim of implementing one-to-one devices for all students across the school, to transform the way teachers taught and the way that young people in the school engage in learning.
Headteacher Stephen Cox says “I am a ‘technology pragmatist’, try it, measure the impact, evaluate it, adopt or drop! I still get an enormous buzz from witnessing that “lightbulb” moment with young people in my own classroom or when observing my colleagues teach.”
This pragmatic approach is what enables Ribblesdale to stand out above the rest in it’s use of technology to support teaching & learning. Central to everything is how the school has set-up and used Windows and the associated infrastructure on the site. As a large secondary school it is essential that teachers and students have access to a unified platform which gives access to anytime, anywhere learning.
A key element of this has been the use of Office 365 and Windows 10 to provide teachers with the tools to enhance what goes on in the classroom and across the school. Applications such as OneNote are now widely used by all members of the school community, from School Improvement at the Senior Leadership Team level, through to Department Evaluation & Planning by Middle Leaders and teachers/students as Class Notebooks to replace the traditional exercise book.
The success of Office 365 and applications such as OneNote is in a large part due to the link between traditional on-site resources and the cloud, using tools such as School Data Sync (SDS) and Azure Active Directory Connect (AAD Connect). School data sync facilitates the ‘mirroring’ of student information, organised in classes and groups as defined in the management information system, into Office 365 and Azure Active Directory, from where it will automatically populate any classroom application, including Office 365, OneNote Class Notebook and Teacher Dashboard. Ribblesdale staff find that with SDS, OneNote Class Notebooks become easy to use. Set-up delays are eliminated, and everyone can get on with their teaching and learning. Teachers comment on the ease of setting and reviewing assignments that can be completed at home, and on the facility to look at work in progress and make suggestions for the next step. One of the Ribblesdale teacher’s homes in on just how much easier it is, with SDS, for activities to be distributed to groups of pupils.
“Having OneNote Class Notebooks set up automatically has allowed me to distribute activities to pupils before the lesson starts. This saves time and lets pupils review certain aspects before the lesson”
In terms of devices, the use of Surface Pro 4’s coupled with Microsoft Wireless adapters has untethered staff from the front of the classroom and changed the whole dynamic of the traditional, structured classroom. This has further been transformed by the implementation on one-to-one Windows 10 devices for students to support in lessons and at home.
In order to effectively implement one-to-one devices Ribblesdale has drawn on other Microsoft tools such as Azure Active Directory. Intune is used to deploy applications and manage devices and has ensured the effective deployment and management at all levels. Without it, time would have been wasted, getting ‘hands-on’ with each device to ensure it was configured correctly and fit for purpose. This has allowed the ICT Support team to use there time more efficiently supporting students and staff in their use of technology.
All this would not have been possible without the support of the MIEE’s and their skills & determination to drive ideas forward. They are not scared to take risks and use tools such as the Microsoft Educator Community (MEC) to transform their delivery in the classroom and mentor colleagues around them. Student Digital Leaders have also been recruited to support not only fellow students, but also to lend a ‘helping hand’ in the classroom to those teachers who are less confident in the use of technology in the classroom. The whole teaching and learning model has started to be flipped onto its’ head!
The future
The next phase of the Ribblesdale journey is to further develop the use of the cloud, to provide an infrastructure that truly enables the anytime, anywhere learning approach. Traditional on-site storage and infrastructure has already started to be transitioned onto the Microsoft Cloud. Azure is allowing Ribblesdale to reduce its’ capital costs and deploy these resources elsewhere, which is becoming ever more important in a climate of ‘squeezed’ school budgets. Azure also ensures that unscheduled downtime is a thing of the past, which is essential when teachers and students demand access 24/7!
Microsoft Training School
Ribblesdale was selected as a Microsoft Showcase School in October 2015, in recognition of their effective use of technology to enhance teaching & learning across the curriculum and beyond. Ribblesdale has always had a drive in the use of technology to improve student learning and achievement at all levels. One of the key drivers in the school is to prepare students for life beyond Ribblesdale and ensure that they have the appropriate 21st century skills to enable them to be successful in the future careers, both within and outside of education. In May 2017 the school was also selected to be one of only a small number of Microsoft Training Academies in the UK. This has led to Ribblesdale hosting and developing relationships with other education providers, with the aim of supporting them in their journeys in using technology to develop and enhance what goes on in the classroom and beyond.
Sign up for a Ribblesdale Training Academy Day here.