Swanlea School
Swanlea School is a large, vibrant and thriving secondary school in the centre of London. With approximately 1000 students on roll and a further 210 at KS5, staff at Swanlea work to achieve outstanding student outcomes in all key stages.
How does the use of technology progress the school development and T&L policy?
'What we have found at Swanlea is that in order to make teaching online more effective, it's really important that staff are aware of the different capabilities of the packages that we're working with.'
Paul Gardner: Deputy Headteacher
How can the required change be managed?
'If it is something that you genuinely believe is going to make a difference and will make learning better for young people, that it's necessary to set aside some time to do this.'
Paul Gardner: Deputy Headteacher
How can schools involve their wider school community in the adoption of new technologies?
'One of the key reasons behind our significant improvement and investment in our IT at Swanlea has been the tremendous support we've had from the local authority.'
Kabir Miah - Deputy Headteacher
How do you measure the impact of the role of technology on improving standards?
'In education, we always want to think about the impact of what we did. And there are a plethora of ways that you can do this, and they are not all just linked to pupil outcomes; we did a lot of student voice talking to students about what their experience was like of online learning. We also spoke to parents, we spoke to carers and we spoke to teachers to get their feedback on what worked and what did not work.'
Paul Gardner: Deputy Headteacher
What role does staff development play in achieving your school development plan & vision?
'As a school, we have been really clear that we want to be exceptional in teaching, leading and learning. And key to this is making sure all the colleagues in school are well trained and understand how it is that they can get better every day. The most important thing, as with all school change management and systems, is working with staff to ensure that they know what they are doing and they are highly skilled in that.'
Paul Gardner: Deputy Headteacher
How can technology accelerate the development of inclusive practices?
'It's really important that young people have access to new technology so they can access learning from wherever they are. Children in underprivileged families that have very challenging circumstances in particular often have families who aren't aware of the benefits of technology or don't have access to these new technologies. And we've been very careful to work very closely with our most vulnerable students.'
Kabir Miah: Deputy Headteacher
What role has Tower Hamlets Local Authority had in the successful adoption of technology at Swanlea?
'A key milestone in our work as a school.,indeed within the Local Authority, has been the partnership that we've had with EdTech. Selda Ziya, in particular, has worked fantastically with us as a school. Signposting us to the resourcing and the infrastructure and the software, indeed the hardware that allows us ideally to become over time a beacon borough across London in terms of ICT provision.'
Kabir Miah: Deputy Headteacher
Examples of how technology supports effective Teaching & Learning at Swanlea School
'When I teach in my class, I want to know what the misconceptions are so I can address them and what low stakes testing does. For example, in Maths, we have a piece of software which they use every single week on a weekly basis to assess what questions they're getting right and what questions they got wrong, so that when the teacher revisits those topics, they're able to decipher. The majority of students are getting this right.'
Aaron Burns: Head of IT services & TIC of Computer Science