Islay first, and the Cedars follows…

Posted by: mimanifesto on: February 21, 2011

• In: change | future of education | ICT
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Well done to the Cedars School of Excellence, a private school in Greenock for equipping all pupils with iPads and having most lessons taught using them. The school’s website proudly boasts that it is the first school in the world to have a 1:1 pupil/iPad ratio. At a cost of £45K, no small change here then, but  then Cedars is a private school, with, one would imagine, more available resources per pupil than most state schools. What, I wonder, would be the cost of doing the same in a typical Scottish secondary school ? and then there would be the problems of maintenance and security, which, I would imagine, would be more of an ‘issue’ in state schools in some of our less economically advantaged areas ?

The head teacher is further reported in today’s Herald as having declared handwriting a ‘dead art’ and attacks the SQA for maintaining ‘old fashioned’ practice by insisting on handwritten exams. Ok, many of us can relate, at least in part, to that sentiment…

So, we look at stories like this coming from the private sector in education and sigh wistfully shaking our heads in wonder at the resources of the wealthy independent school sector and their forward-thinking ideas and philosophy…or do we ?

When I read this story this morning, and whilst congratulating Alison Speirs, the Cedar’s Head, on her use of technology relevant to the 21st century,  I couldn’t help thinking I’d seen this before, and some years ago at that. Because this was an approach put into practice by Islay High School and Ian Stuart, now depute head teacher at the school. Ok, they didn’t use iPads…they hadn’t been invented. But they did use wireless tablet computers and projectors, with each pupil being given their own tablet loaded with the software. All as a part of a government ‘Schools of Ambition’ scheme and in partnership with local industry. We saw all of this in practice during the fantastic Education 2020 ‘unconference’ organised by Ian and his colleague, Andy Wallis in June 2009 (and sponsored by the so-called ‘old fashioned’ SQA, by the way). And the SQA’s very own Gordon Brown continued this work with the Future Models of Assessment working group throughout 2009/10 which looked at alternative ways of assessing progress and learning to the so-called old-fashioned hand-written exams, much criticized by Alison Speirs today, in 2011.

So its good to see the independent education sector catching up with the good old state behemoth. And evidence that, where innovative and forward-thinking practitioners like Ian, Andy, and many others lead, many more will be sure, in some way at least, to follow…

Tags: Assessment, Cedars school, Education, ICT, iPad, Islay