In a recent event initiated by Becta, parents, teachers, educational and parental bloggers came together to see for themselves the real-life benefits of learning platforms in helping children’s education. The venue was Grays Infant and Nursery School in Newhaven, where staff and parents were keen to share their stories on how learning platforms are changing their children’s learning for the better.
The interactive ‘Show and tell’ event began with an introduction to Grays School’s use of a learning platform, presented by Head Teacher, Christine Terrey. In Easter 2008 the school started using its learning platform, as an early adopter for the local authority. Christine has since become part of her Local Authority’s advisory board, ensuring that other schools in the East Sussex area are able to learn from her experiences of using learning platforms. The school has won the Extended School Engagement award for the Uniservity Awards in Excellence, the Becta ICT Excellence Award for Leadership Management and Collaboration, as well as being the first Infant and Nursery school in East Sussex to gain the ICT mark.
The emphasis of Gray’s learning platform is very much on supporting and adding value to work that the children already do, and opening up opportunities for learning to continue beyond the school day. Even the nursery school pupils are able to login to the learning platform, using a series of picture icons rather than words. Uploading lessons to the learning platform, within minutes of a lesson ending, means that children can reflect on the work they are doing and can share their day’s activities with their families.
One of the first activities that the learning platform was used for was an international online collaboration for the Olympic Games in 2008. Each class at Grays School was assigned a sport to research and update on the learning platform. This gave children the opportunity to see the work of other year groups within the school, as well as the work of children across the world. The learning platform is also used to tackle education issues outside of school hours. Grays School recorded a learning loss in the summer holidays, and investigated how they could use the learning platform to combat this. By setting short exercises for the children to complete during the holidays on the learning platform, they were able to halve summer learning loss within just one year.
More recently, when pupils were unable to attend school because of the snowy weather, fun and engaging activities were uploaded to the learning platform so children could report back on their day – including poems about snow and weather; and adjectives they could use to describe their day playing in the snow.
Another issue is inequality of access to the internet at home. 3G enabled netbooks are sent home with children who do not have the internet, to ensure everyone is able to gain the benefit out of school.
A further challenge that the children face is the transition from infant to junior school. Recognising this issue, Christine Terrey works closely with the nearby junior school to ensure this changeover is made as easy as possible. Small details, such as using the same learning platform technology and having the same logo on both sites, makes children feel at home as soon as they arrive at their new school. This is enhanced by allowing children from both schools to work together on the learning platform, such as setting up a forum for infant school pupils to ask questions about the junior school – and was recently used to allay fears caused by a rumour that the junior school toilets were haunted!
The enthusiasm of the staff and parents for the learning platform, and their stories of how they – and importantly their children – had benefited from the technology will serve as an inspiration for any schools considering starting to use a learning platform of their own.
As Head Teacher Christine Terrey concludes:
“I think overall the learning platform has enhanced the school here. It has supported the pupils’ engagement with their learning and it is building their self esteem. We use it to celebrate achievement and to celebrate progress, and for our children to see their learning and be proud of it.”
About Grays Infant and Nursery School, Newhaven
Grays School is an Infant and Nursery School of 240 children situated in Newhaven East Sussex.
The school serves a generally disadvantaged community, with many young mums who did not go on to further education.
Many of the pupils have special educational needs (SEN), and some children join them with low starting points, with marked problems with learning loss over holiday periods.
Good practice has always been to share, discuss, collaborate and work in partnership with parents in order for children to make progress and achieve their potential.
They seek to build upon this practice and share children’s achievements and progress using technology and online with parents in a two way process.
The head teacher is Christine Terrey who is an active member of Becta’s Leading Leaders Network. Grays School won an ICT Excellence Award in 2008 in the Leadership, management and collaboration category and are rated as Good by Ofsted in their latest inspection. They also won the Extended School Engagement award for Uniservity Learning Platform Awards for Excellence. They were the first primary school in East Sussex to gain the ICT Mark.
Find out more about Grays School – visit the school website and download the podcasts!