Priory Integrated College, an Apple Distinguished School since 2016, is an exceptional school which values the unique talents and potential of every pupil. Each young person is supported, stretched and challenged to become resilient, confident and successful learners who are aware of who they are and what they achieve. Our pupils have a zest for life and make a positive contribution to society. We welcome children from both the Catholic and Protestant traditions, as well as children of other faiths and none. We seek to promote parity of esteem between all pupils and we celebrate difference in all manifestations. Together, reflects our belief that we are stronger being an active part of the Priory family and together we achieve.
Apple Distinguished School
Vision
Priory has a culture of continuous self reflection; seeking to provide education at its best. We embody a growth mindset promoting staff and pupils to work together to ensure excellence for all by building capacity at all levels and promoting distributed leadership. Through clear communication we nurture our culture of integration and success, setting high expectations and allowing for collaboration across and between stakeholders to support innovative solutions to school improvement. We value collegiality and believe the increased capacity of the individual supports the growth of the whole. The iPad enhances a flexible curriculum, greater collaboration, outstanding and creative pedagogy, increased pupil motivation and whole school connectivity, reflection and improvement.
Vision in Action
Learning
Pupil learning has become more connected, collaborative, creative and personal. Pupils are motivated to use the iPad independently and collaboratively via shared platforms both with peer, teacher and the global education community. Pupils learn best at their own speed with resources bespoke to their learning needs and capacity. The iPad supports a differentiated approach to teaching and learning and helps pupils develop the skills and dispositions necessary to support them achieving the best outcomes possible, both in terms of academic success and creative skills. Relationships are fostered through peer work and instant teacher feedback, whereby pupils goals are realised as they are supported in acknowledging mistakes and finding creative solutions to overcome them. Pupils and teachers are empowered to continually learn, challenge themselves and demonstrate their progress so that impact can be seen throughout the school and wider community.
Professional learning takes place to ensure teachers go deeper in their expertise with the iPad technology so that pupils are inspired to up-skill themselves and maximise its potential. The iPad Drive Team have led this from a grassroots level and have encouraged the exploration of new approaches to teaching and learning.
As a Thinking School, the iPad supports the connected and creative environment necessary to support metacognition and to enhance synthesis of learning both within each pupil and at a whole school level. Apple technology is a vehicle for capturing knowledge, recording, revising, mastering, focusing and stretching thinking. The iPad supports the embedding of Thinking Frames, which are metacognitive visual tools to support pupils in organising their thinking at a higher level. This helps them to remember information in the process and be able to enhance their outcomes in terms of verbal and written tasks, thus improving academic outcomes and ultimately self efficacy, love for learning and social mobility.
Learning in Action
Success
Data and reflection forms the basis of our self school evaluation which determines our College Development Plan by ascertaining success against clearly defined criteria and subsequent next steps to bring about success. We value stakeholder consultation and gather qualitative data from focus groups and interviews to ascertain a contemporaneous ‘voice’ on what is going well and what could be improved. This is supported by quantitive data which looks at pupil outcomes throughout the year to determine formative feedback which can improve summative results. Feedback from remote learning during this academic year has shown that the use of the iPad has kept pupil engagement with learning high and pupils outcomes have proved to be strong.
Success in Action
What’s next
Priory Integrated College is evaluating a number of replacement platforms for iTunes U, the foundation of our digital initiative in school. This choice will form an integral part in our digital workflow and must suit teachers and pupils alike.
We are also starting an important pilot for Classroom Assistants (CRAs) to have and use iPad initiative to support pupils with barriers to learning. This will further support pupils and teachers and empower classroom assistants to tailor the support they provide in a meaningful and specific way. Since we have nearly as many CRAs as teachers, this is a significant approach to whole school improvement.
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