The Educator Magazine U.K. Jan-April 2023. - Magazine - Page 7
The Romero Catholic Academy
accelerates IT strategy with Promethean
‘Nurturing the talent of tomorrow’ runs
through the very heart of The Romero
Catholic Academy. This family of one
secondary and seven primary schools
offers a seamless learning journey for
children aged two to nineteen years, while
its centralised operations enable the
Coventry-based multi-academy company
(MAC) to deliver economies of scale and
operational efficiencies.
While Cardinal Wiseman used projector
and screen set-ups to deliver secondary
and sixth form lessons, the primary
schools had been early adopters of the
Promethean ActivPanel: “Staying focused
Committed to developing a self-improving
and sustainable school-led system,
The Romero Catholic Academy
continuously looks for new ways to drive
forward pedagogical approaches and
enhance MAC infrastructure. Embracing
digital transformation as part of this
development path, The Romero Catholic
Academy reviewed its existing IT estate to
identify key areas for improvement.
Alongside the introduction of ActivPanel
displays across the entire trust estate,
The Romero Catholic Academy committed
to Promethean’s MAT Accelerator
programme.
Led by the Head of IT, Hitesh Vara, this
evaluation concluded that a move to cloud
computing would deliver a sustainable
foundation for digital development across
the entire estate, starting with bringing
all schools on to a shared network:
“Our secondary school, Cardinal Wiseman,
was operating in a cloud-based Google
environment, the primary schools had
on-premise infrastructure with Microsoft
365,” explained Hitesh.
A consistent and commercially
sound strategy
With the decision made to transition
all eight schools to cloud computing
with Microsoft 365, Hitesh and his team
simultaneously appraised how this would
work with the teaching technologies.
“In the same way that we started with a
mixed communication network, we were
also faced with a broad range of display
technologies being used throughout the
MAC. To achieve truly sustainable digital
development and seamless transition for
our learners, we needed consistency in all
aspects of the IT estate.”
on our long-term objective to deliver a
sustainable strategy and consistent
teaching provision MAC-wide, we
concluded that the whole estate should be
upgraded at the same time.” said Hitesh.
Available to all Multi-Academy
Companies who invest in the ActivPanel,
the MAT Accelerator improves effective
adoption, embeds ActivPanel best
practice, and fast-tracks educational value.
This is achieved through the development
of a customised training and support
programme that aligns with individual
MAC needs. For The Romero Catholic
Academy, the MAT Accelerator initially
focused on IT staff and teacher training, as
well as the creation of Digital Champions.
Hitesh talks through what this looks like
in practice: “Delivered in partnership
with Primary Goal, Digital Champions
is supporting us to bring a new Digital
Support Technician up toapprenticeship
standard. Crucially, this programme
focuses on the ActivPanel specifically,
as well as wider digital literacy, adoption
of cloud technology and online safety.
This content aligns perfectly with our
priorities and IT roadmap.”
Tailored training for targeted
impact
For the teaching team, Promethean
designed a flexible training programme
that provided access to virtual and
on-site sessions. Delivered against an
agreed timeframe, this training ran
simultaneously with the phased ActivPanel
implementation to ensure that teachers
To learn more about the ActivPanel and how it supports
schools to deliver IT strategies and improve learning outcomes,
visit Promethean at Bett (29th – 31st March 2023) on Stand NL41.
were equipped with the essentials of using
the key features from the start.
“The transition from a mixed estate to
the ActivPanel being used in all classrooms
meant that a ‘one size fits all’ approach to
training wouldn’t have been sufficient.
Promethean invested significant time in
planning the training provision to ensure
that it focused on the areas that would
deliver maximum impact,” explained Hitesh.
While Cardinal Wiseman was using
interactive panels for the first time, the
primary teachers were already familiar with
some aspects of the ActivPanel –
particularly the accompanying ActivInspire
software which is supplied as standard.
Moreover, with cloud-computing now a
key part of the academy’s strategy, there
is growing interest in Promethean’s
ClassFlow – cloud-based software that
connects classroom devices and supports
interactive activities such as polling.
“As the ActivPanel comes with a choice of
software, we’re able to give teachers the
flexibility to choose which will best support
pedagogy at a given time. By helping them
to develop competence and confidence
in using the full Promethean solution,
teachers will then have the freedom to
embed the technology in a way that best
suits them,” explained Hitesh.
An accelerated approach
Although The Romero Catholic Academy
has moved forward at pace to accelerate
the ActivPanel upgrade programme, the
successful installation of 200 panels is only
the start of the Promethean journey:
“The MAT Accelerator proved a critical
success factor for our MAC-wide IT
strategy, giving us access to a structured
programme that supported our unique
objectives. It’s been an excellent
springboard, but we recognise the real
value lies in a long-term commitment,
and we’re excited to move to the next
stage of our journey in partnership with
Promethean.” concluded Hitesh.