Partner Success

For over 1100 students in St Mary’s College in Naas, Co Kildare, the motto ‘care, courage, community’ is a lived experience every day. The main goal of the school is to ensure that students feel valued and empowered to achieve the best they can.

“We didn’t want in an all-girls school for there to be a glass ceiling on what any of our students could achieve” said principal Mark Dowling. “We wanted to ensure that our students were set up with the skills and tools they need to thrive in school, third level and the working world.”

To make this vision a reality, the school embedded Microsoft 365 as their virtual learning environment and gave all staff and students access to their own Lenovo Windows devices for teaching and learning (a model known as 1:1).

Safe, Equitable Access to the Tools Students Need

For St Mary’s College staff, caring about their students means providing equity of opportunity to every student and providing them with the tools and environment to allow them to thrive. Giving each student in the school access to their own laptop for learning has really helped level the playing field.

“The fact that all students have access to Lenovo devices brings equity of access for all students” states Mark Dowling. “And for our EAL students and students with additional needs, they have access to tools like Immersive Reader when they’re using their device in class which can translate any text to their native language or break it down into syllables to assist with reading. It really allows for meaningful differentiation of learning.”

Walk down the corridors of St Mary’s College and not only will you see inclusive learning, you’ll witness learning come to life.

“Without a doubt, the biggest impact on teaching and learning in the school has been in the whole area of collaboration and active learning methodologies. It’s just fantastic to see all students engage with the devices collaboratively, working with one another on assignments” shares Mark.

And while these benefits are at the core of what the school wanted to achieve with their 1:1 program, the management software on the device is key to ensuring that the learning environment is safe, effective and built for educational use only.

“The managed devices give us all peace of mind as the devices are all monitored so there’s no distractions and they are fully education focused” asserts Padraig McGeever, a teacher in the school. “It also saves us time as there’s no time wasted with troubleshooting before or during class.”

“Having my managed Lenovo laptop is for the best because I think it keeps you on track in class” maintains Molly, a student in the school. “You’d only be distracted if you were able to download social media apps and games.”

Ensuring Success at Senior Cycle

Now entering the second year of their 1:1 Lenovo device program, the school feel they have laid the foundations for their students to succeed at the new Senior Cycle assessments.

“With the dawn of Senior Cycle Reform and the introduction of the AACs our students are very well prepared” maintains Mark. “Many of our subjects that we offer here already have project components and those teachers have spoken to me already in the last 3 weeks about the impact of everyone in the class having a device and being able to see that work coming to fruition in class.”

Students in the school are also notably feeling confident heading into CBAs at Junior Cycle and AACs for Senior Cycle.

“I feel really prepared about the Senior Cycle curriculum changes because I know I’ve lots of skills developed from using my Lenovo laptop” states Lauren, a student in the school. “I’ve done PowerPoint presentations in class before so I know how to make them. And I’ve developed lots of skills and confidence as well.”

Complete Support for the School’s Digital Program

When embarking on their digital journey, the school leadership team knew that they needed support to ensure the success of their program. Having worked with Wriggle since the early stages of that journey, they haven’t looked back.

“Wriggle have been an absolutely fantastic support to us as a school” confides Mark. “They really have held our hand and walked with us every step of our 1:1 journey and linked us up with other schools who had gone that journey beforehand, and we were able to visit schools before we embarked on this journey and see the 1:1 devices in action.”

As well as the initial set up support provided by Wriggle, the school leadership team are also delighted with the ongoing support the wider Wriggle team provide.

“They were able to guide us with our digital strategy and were fantastic at meeting parents at our open evenings.We have a Wriggle person who looks after our school specifically. She’s always at the end of the phone, able to answer any questions or queries that we might have. And we’ve just found it’s just been like that security blanket for us.”