Apple Distinguished School
We are pleased to be recognised as an Apple Distinguished School for 2022-2025 for our innovative use of learning across the curriculum made possible through our one-to-one iPad programme across Key Stage One and Two.
Our Story
Heronsgate Primary School is a 4-form entry state school in south east London, with a larger Thamesmead campus and a smaller Royal Arsenal campus. We serve an area facing significant deprivation, with 30% of children eligible for free school meals, and have a culturally and ethnically diverse school population, with 54% of children speaking English as an additional language. Despite these challenges, we have been graded 'Outstanding' by Ofsted since 2008, with a 2019 monitoring report praising our 'exceptionally innovative, unique and personalised curriculum'. Our 1:1 iPad programme, first introduced in 2016, is key to how we deliver a broad and balanced curriculum to all our learners, regardless of background.
Vision
We see technology as a powerful tool for learning across the curriculum that allows us to ‘discover and realise the genius in everyone.’ Through providing continuous access to technology in Years 1-6, iPad supports learning that is experiential, collaborative and reflective. iPad gives children really memorable learning experiences as children remember and understand through learning by doing. iPad makes it easy for children to work together on projects, creating something new as they apply their learning. iPad gives children tools for reflecting on their learning, evaluating and analysing to develop their thinking. Through exploring new ways of working with Apple technology, identifying what works well and then implementing best practice across the school, we are able to continuously innovate in our approach.
Learning
Teachers deliver lessons in a responsive way, freed up to move around the entire classroom space through the integral use of iPad in teaching at Heronsgate. iPad offers a versatile interactive surface, with apps such as Explain Everything or Keynote then AirPlay mirrored to a large Apple TV-connected screen in the classroom and throughout the school.
We make use of Showbie as our learning platform with iPad, allowing for distributing resources to children, gathering back in work from learners and rich feedback on learning. This works across the whole iPad ecosystem, with apps such as Pages or Book Creator allowing students to design and make digital books to collate together learning in subjects such as science, DT and humanities.
Through devising a bespoke computing curriculum, children learn coding skills using Apple's 'Everyone Can Code' curriculum resources and app such as Tynker and Swift Playgrounds. We also ensure the basics of using apps such as iMovie, GarageBand, Pages, Numbers and Keynote are taught to children, so that these can then be used across the curriculum as required.
This allows for iPad to truly be a tool for learning across the curriculum, whether that's recording a green screen weather forecast with iMovie in Geography, browsing and reading our school digital library in the app Sora, keeping track of circuit times with Numbers in PE or completing a WWII Pages workbook in history.
Success
We can measure success in our technology programme in terms of teacher confidence, usage across the curriculum and impact on learning. From a previous Learning Technologies Survey, 100% of teachers report feeling prepared for teaching with technology. Looking at our learning platform Showbie, we have seen over 600,000 items uploaded in the last year across all subjects, indicating the widespread use of iPad in the classroom. During the 2020 COVID-19 school closures, we were able to continue learning remotely as both teachers and children were confident with our technology platform, with over 85% of children logging in at home in the first two weeks. We found a strong correlation between the level of engagement with our remote learning and pupil progress.
What’s next
Teachers have loved using Apple Pencil with their iPad for many years and we are beginning to integrate the use of Logitech Crayon class sets. As iPad supports stylus input across the operating system and many apps, this will allow children to creatively engage with their learning in new and innovative ways.
We are also exploring the use of augmented reality to give children fresh ways to experience learning as they interact with digital artefacts through physical exploration, both exploring existing resources and creating new environments to inspire learning. The courses we offer as the Greenwich Apple Regional Training Centre will continue to up-skill our teachers as they incorporate augmented reality into classroom practice.
2022-2025 Application
2019-2022 Application
