Expectations are high at Poole High School, but they are carefully matched to achievable potential to ensure that students maintain confidence in their own abilities and a positive self-image within the learning environment.
Poole High School is a vibrant and progressive co-educational comprehensive school on the South coast of England, which is locally oversubscribed and set very high standards. Ofsted described Poole High School as a “good school that provides very well for all its pupils. […] support and guidance of students is excellent resulting in very positive relationships. [...] achievement across all subjects is consistently good.” Poole High School was established in 1959 and has 1650 pupils and over 100 staff.
From an in-houste system to itslearning
As part of Poole High School’s commitment to pioneering ICT and to increase collaboration and information for all, the school developed an in-house system of delivering resources to students and staff through the internet. Over a short period of time it became clear that the amount of time and effort required to maintain and support this system was outweighing it’s merits resulting in an alternative solution being required.
After a well considered inspection of different options, the Head of ICT Darren Barton concluded itslearning was his preferred choice of learning platform because it delivered upon the schools requirements:
- Straightforward navigation for students and staff
- Ease of use
- True anytime, anywhere access
- Simple migration of resources from legacy systems
- Effective Administration system
- Excellent value for money
- A whole school approach
The main objective was to seamlessly and quickly migrate resources and content from the legacy system and due to the ease-of-use of itslearning, Poole High School aimed to launch itslearning as a whole school approach, to train all staff and make the learning platform available across all teachers and students. itslearning’s administration systems provided an easy method of keeping track of the progress against these objectives.
Efficient implementation
The main challenges Darren and his team faced were the levels of technophobia and initial staff understanding of a learning platform, coupled with the need to quickly train all school staff.
Poole High School procured itslearning in June 2007 and after initial training from itslearning were able to cascade the knowledge gained from the original training throughout the school, using a process of different departments training each other.
Students were enrolled via the MIS system and house assemblies were held to distribute access details for all students. Additional staff support is provided by a whole school team approach and the sharing of knowledge and information within itslearning.
The volume of uptake of itslearning by teachers and students has taken the school by surprise, and over the past ten months Poole High School has seen a significant increase in the usage across the school by all users. The number of courses available to students increases weekly and courses from RE to French are provided for inclusion of all.
Outcomes
Poole High School recently hit the local news for an innovative approach to tackling bullying and the difficulties by some children in finding friends. The school run an Animal Club and keep a variety of animals at the school which are looked after by the children. itslearning provides a forum for children to share their experiences and ideas on many issues such as fundraising or new methods of animal husbandry, and improves children’s ability to communicate with others. The pupils taking part in these projects required little or no training in how to use itslearning.
A reduction in teacher workload has been noted with the greater collaboration of teachers across all of lesson plans, content created by teachers and repurposed, templates for study guides shared across the school. itslearning has made a significant difference to teacher time and working practice in enabling access anytime anywhere. This has lead to a greater amount of time for teachers to concentrate on teaching, and pupils are benefiting from having fantastic specific resources available to them at any time.
Pupils now take ownership of the School Newsletter, using itslearning to contribute articles and collaborate on many levels for the editing, production and responsibility of the monthly document. Staff are highly enthused by the itslearning Virtual staffroom where top tips are shared for example resizing images, how to book the ICT suite, where to find additional resources.
The Languages department now use itslearning to deliver lessons in the classroom and Sciences use the lesson tools to deliver support to lessons in class with additional material, quizzes and highly engaging activities for the students
The future with itslearning
Though Poole High School has only recently started using itslearning it is clear that the benefits gained in such a short space of time can be replicated and improved upon across many other areas of the school and provide a further means of extending to the community.
Poole High School will shortly be making use of itslearning synchronous SIMS integration, providing a seamless means up pupil updating and even further reducing administration workload.
itslearning has provided Poole High School with an easy-to-use and great-value-for-money solution that will continue to grow with them and provide all staff and students with a fun place to learn.