The information technology available to students, parents and staff at Corby Business Academy will break down barriers to learning. It will make working from school or home easier and give everyone access to a wide range of resources to support their work. This section of the web site is intended to give an idea of what life for a student might be like on a typical Academy day one year after opening.
Lauren is our Year 10 Corby Academy student in the year 2009.
The Academy has been open for about a year and Lauren's parents are getting used to accessing the Information Services web site, where they can top up her cashless smart card using their credit / debit card, view her achievements and awards from the previous week, check attendance, punctuality and homework plan. Information for the forthcoming trip to York for year 10's history project is available and they are able to pay on-line for Lauren's coach ticket and entrance fee. This week there is a personal message from Lauren's form tutor, Miss Price, for the forthcoming tutorial day and a choice of times for her parents to directly book a 30 minute meeting with her.
Meanwhile, in her bedroom, Lauren is putting the finishing touches to her science assignment on acid and alkaline. At home she has completed a virtual experiment which tested a number of different liquids for acidity or alkalinity. Lauren's had to classify them from weakly acid to strongly alkaline. Now she has finished she enters her work remotely into 'My Academy Space' on the Academy's Virtual Learning Network. Her work will be marked instantaneously by the network and her score fed back within seconds. The program will give her feedback and suggest further work or an extension activity. Lauren has completed her assignment on time and therefore the system has not had to alert her tutor or teacher that she has fallen behind with this task. Her marks for the assignment are added to her profile and her parents, tutor and science teacher can see her progress.
Lauren's friend Jay is also working on her science project at home. The two girls are swapping ideas about the acids and alkalis they have found in their houses. Lauren has been Jay's study partner for science for the last two years: Jay has a special needs statement for learning support because she is confined to a wheelchair suffering from mild Cerebral Palsy. Lauren helps Jay being online with projects that Jay works on from home in the evenings and weekends, and she also helps her in science lessons in the Academy. Jay's physical handicap restricts what she can do, especially in the science experiments, but the adjustable height equipment in the Academy means she can take part in most activities. Jay has special ICT equipment to help compensate for her disability. In her wheelchair basket she carries a wireless laptop with a specially assigned 'blue tooth' switch so she can access her computer as easily as any other able bodied student. The laptop has some additional software to support Jay's learning but the one she relies on most is a predictive word processor that enables her to type more quickly. In fact her friends want the same software as she is able to type faster than them.
Today she is using the 'digiblue' camera she has been lent by the science department to record the bleaches, detergents and other products she is finding in the family kitchen and emailing them to Lauren. The girls' project is a collaborative one, and they will work on the assignment together to categorise what each other is finding at home. Later the two students will submit their project, complete with photographs and a voice recording.
Meanwhile the Academy's Virtual Learning Network is giving Lauren's science teacher a detailed breakdown of the areas that she has either succeeded in or found difficult. Once the whole group's work is in the system, it will give the teacher feedback over the general level of understanding for this topic. Based upon this and individual feedback Mr Catalyst will be able to decide if he should give more work on this topic, or if the class should move on.
The mobile device that Lauren is using at home is one of the new tablet laptop computers. Every child in her year has been lent one of these small computers as part of a trial programme, although others have home computers they prefer to use and the mobile computer is left in school for use during the day. It has a very basic package of the Microsoft Office products as well as a web browser. It enables Lauren to connect to her broadband internet and therefore to the Virtual Learning Network at the Academy. She is able to connect her camera to the machine and up-load her photographs to the network. There they are stored in a file for all the class to access and for the teacher to browse. Mr Catalyst will select a range of photographs to display on the whiteboard to start the next lesson which will examine the domestic use as well as the health and safety aspects of these chemicals prior to undertaking a classroom practical experiment with the real thing.
Arriving at school, Lauren registers herself present on one of the smart card registration swipe points and proceeds through the turnstiles. She meets her friends in the restaurant that is currently serving breakfast for early arrivals. The students don't mind being in school early as they are able to access the school's intranet through one of the open study areas' terminals or via their wireless enabled tablets. Most are checking their emails or picking up work sent in from home by accessing their own learning space. Lauren is ordering her breakfast for the morning break online. Morning break, between 8.30 and 9.45, allows Lauren up to 15 minutes to meet her friends. They have already ordered their morning snack, a piece of fruit, so as not to queue and save time. Yes a piece of fruit! They ordered it through the intranet and have also similarly ordered their lunch option. They are part of the inter-form 'Alive and Kicking' programme and the girls are all keenly aware that they need to get their daily allowance of five fruit or vegetables. Their cards system has been debited at the pay point and the system has recorded it against their diet and fitness record. One of Lauren's friends has booked a badminton court for an evening after school and invited three friends to join her. Lauren gets the electronic invite and accepts, responds to her friend and enters it in her on-line diary in her learning environment.
During tutor time, notices and special announcements for students or staff are being displayed on the monitor screens around the building and via the whiteboard in Lauren's tutor base. Messages are also given verbally and emailed to all students' wireless tablets. One of Lauren's classmates hasn't completed a series of homeworks over the weekend and the school's network has flagged this up to both academic and pastoral staff. The information is sent to the form tutor who is able to quietly talk to the student about the reasons for the lateness of the homework. The tutor can then update the students' record about the circumstances, so other staff will be aware of the nature of the reasons behind the problem. Meanwhile the rest of Lauren's tutor group make their way to assembly where the Principal has a presentation prepared and a wireless microphone to allow him to interact and roam with his audience. The assembly has been recorded for those not able to be present and for other staff and parents to access later through the school web site.
Lauren's first (session 1) lesson is mathematics. She took her SAT's last year and achieved a level 6 and so she is due to take her GCSE in year 10. If she does well she will then she may take a one year GCSE in statistics in year 11. The Maths faculty are using 'Maths Alive' for the current year 10. This allows teachers to select a whole class teaching programme and permits students to follow a more bespoke learning programme. Lauren is part of the 'fast track' group who spend some of the morning in their regular mathematics groups but are brought together for more personalised work some of the time. The faculty is buzzing with activity. The longer lesson times allow students to follow more interesting investigations and project work, with an emphasis on learning by doing, understanding maths through the world of work business and using their teamwork skills for internet research and processing data, problem solving and presentations. The variety of learning experiences are supplemented and supported by the easy access to computers at any time within the faculty base. Small group work is happening with teachers and support staff other than Lauren's usual maths teacher, available to help and advise any student. Lauren's practice work for maths (sometimes called homework!) has been set and is based upon today's lesson. The assignments are waiting for her in her 'homework' folder on the network. She may decide to work on them in session 3 from a terminal in the learning resource centre or alternately she will access them from home later on.
Meanwhile in the classrooms, small groups of students are sharing tablets and discussing their work. The use of the wireless projector server means that several tablets can "talk" to the projector so, in turn, students can show their work to the class and discuss their work.
Session 2 is design technology. Lunch is taken as part of this session and Lauren is now, without queuing for long, able to pick up her meal that was ordered earlier in the day. The restaurant is busy but calm and students are able to watch the plasma screen with their favourite pop videos, interspersed with Academy notices.
Lauren really likes the approach to work in Design technology. It allows her to control much more of her own learning by integrating all the technology materials into a programme of Product Design. One of her projects is to design and make a summer top. Seems straight forward? She has to firstly research and design the material and then print it. The department have specialist graphic designing computers and software as well as computer controlled textile printing, cutting and sowing machines. If this wasn't enough she also has to design and make the hanger, product labelling, accessorise like fasteners, and even the garment packaging for distribution and sales. This overlaps into her business studies course as she has had to research the economics and business case of clothing design and production, distribution and retail as well as the legislation for health and safety of fabrics and materials. She really likes this integrated approach to the subjects and she uses ICT at every stage of the process in the open learning resource areas at the appropriate time to gain the information or research the market. The end of module task for the group is to organise a designer collection evening for the local business community, parents and friends where some lucky person will get to model her garment! The event will be promoted via the local BBC radio station, (but they have to make the promotional audio clip), the internet (but they have to create and edit a web site to organise the event and buy tickets) and finally a promotional leaflet to distribute to local suppliers, business, shops, designers, students and parents. Lauren and her team are able to use the Academies ICT resources to work on this formidable project and other students are going to be involved in making, recording and editing of a video of the 'fashion show' and a photographic shoot as part of their media studies course.
Lauren is debating whether to stay in school for session 3 or work from home on the assignments due in later in the week. She sees Ben on the corridor. "Hi Ben, you staying or going?" she asks. "I'm staying for a music session. The new guy is starting guitar playing for beginners and there is a video web cast with a bass player from a real band for the first lesson. Fancy coming along?"...
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