Partner Success

As an Educate Together school, Sandymount Park ETSS’ core aim was to empower students to take ownership of their learning and build the skills they would need for school, college and beyond. To do this, they knew they needed to give all students access to an iPad each (a model known as 1:1 or student led device model).

See the impact this has had on students’ learning in our school video diary series.

Equipping students with the tools they need for Senior Cycle and beyond

For Paula Mulhall, principal of Sandymount Park ETSS, when deciding on a 1:1 device for students, she knew that their chosen device would need to enable students to not only develop the software skills needed for Junior and Senior cycle, but give the students the ability to create and to fully explore and achieve their potential.

“The decision to choose iPad as our device was a really easy one” recounts Paula. “It’s so user-friendly. It’s so robust. Nothing goes wrong with it ever. Students are familiar with the interface and the suite of apps that you can use allows so much creativity.”

Now in the 6th year of their student device program, students and teachers alike say that the iPad brings learning alive, expands students’ creative potential and allows learning to thrive outside the confines of a textbook. And while schools across Ireland prepare for the impending additional assessment components as part of Senior Cycle reform, the teachers and students of Sandymount Park ETSS are delighted that they have already laid the groundwork for these changes.

“For Junior Cycle, we had to be in the mindset that we’re preparing them for their CBAs right at the start of first year and looking at how we’re incorporating those skills and familiarity with the tools they will use right from the beginning. That’s not going to change for Senior Cycle” cites Conor Maxwell, teacher and ICT Coordinator in the school. “We feel prepared for the new Senior Cycle changes” he says. “I think students having access to their own iPad each for learning will be a great help for that.”

Seamless Integration of iPad with Office 365

Together with iPads for students, the school chose Office 365 as their virtual learning platform because of the ease of integration with their chosen device. As well as the huge range of apps and tools available to them on iPad they have found that the additional Office 365 apps compliment the iPad tools and work perfectly on the devices.

“The iPad and Office 365 work seamlessly together” remarks Conor. “Preparing students for the changes coming into Senior Cycle with all of the projects and the CBAs at Junior Cycle as well, and even thinking ahead to third level or the world of work, these are skills that we possibly wouldn’t have been able to develop without having the iPad and Office 365.”

Making Learning Accessible for all

One of the greatest benefits the school have found with their students iPads is the huge range of accessibility features built into the device that really help level the playing field for students.

“Any students who have difficulty with writing can speak their answers into the iPad rather than having to write it out” explains Conor. “We have a number of students in the school who have english as a second language and it means they aren’t being left behind.”

And for students like Tadhg with additional learning needs, the iPad has been a complete game-changer.

“Using an iPad has changed my life” states Tadhg with conviction. “For me I have dyspraxia, so I type everything onto a OneNote or Word document on the iPad. Being able to do this so seamlessly is really helpful for me.” 

Complete School Support for Digital Learning

Like a lot of principals, Paula Mulhall acknowledges that while she was convinced that the best thing for their students was to introduce 1:1 student devices, she needed the support of an experienced technology partner to ensure that the rollout and management of all of these devices ran safely and smoothly.

“We direct parents to the online store and know that that’s all we have to do until the students turn up ready to go in September” says Paula. “I didn’t want to have my time and attention taken up with the resource management, worrying about the devices and when they would arrive and were they safely set up, so what was really helpful to me was having a technology partner like Wriggle. And I knew then that the bit that needed to make that happen, the management of it, was being done by somebody else.”