Category Archives: Independent Schools

1:1 deployment, Apple, Impact on learning, Independent Schools, Inverclyde, Strategic vision, Teacher

Cedars School of Excellence: 1:1 iPad overview

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1:1 iPads across the school

Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock is an independent school catering for children ages from 5 to 17 years. In 2009 they were inspired by the announcement of Apple’s new iPad that would lead them to become the first school to offer 1:1 iPad provision for learners and staff. Since that time they have been working to integrate the use of this technology in to the fabric of learning in their school. We visited them in October 2012 to find out what their experience with their 1:1 approach had been.

We met with Mrs Speirs (headteacher) who explained the context for the decision to go with the 1:1 iPad provision. She told us that a few years back the school was looking to move the technological experience of their pupils on a bit further from where they were. The school’s vision at the time was to increase learner access to tools that would allow them to have more access to the internet and to word processing.

The school had looked at a range of devices, but just as they were in the process of evaluating which device to go with the iPad came out, and so they made the decision that this would be the one for them. The school’s website tells this story in greater detail.

cedars_aspeirsimpact Interview with Mrs Speirs (headteacher)

Mrs Speirs thinks that that the decision has been a very good one for her learners and that the 1:1 approach fits very well with the school’s educational ethos, which is all about individualised learning. She thinks that she has seen the greatest impact on the engagement with learning by the boys in her school and that the functionality and flexibility that the tool offers has led to greater depth and detail in the feedback that her teachers now offer.

1:1 deployment, App purchase and management, Apple, Device management, Independent Schools

Cedars School of Excellence: Managing and deploying apps to iPads

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Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock is an independent school catering for children ages from 5 to 17 years. In 2009 they were inspired by the announcement of the Apple’s new iPad that would lead them to become the first school to offer 1:1 iPad provision for learners and staff. Since that time they have been working to integrate the use of this technology into the fabric of learning in their school. We visited them in October 2012 to find out what their experience with their 1:1 approach had been.

We met with Fraser Speirs (computing teacher), who has been responsible for the planning and management of the school’s iPad deployment. We asked him about the challenges there might be with managing apps to over 100 iPads in his school and he explained that there had been issues with this aspect of their iPad initiative but with the advent of Apple’s volume purchase and configurator tools that this had now become a much easier and smoother process.

Cedars School: Managing apps Interview with Fraser Speirs about managing apps

Fraser was accompanied by Andrew Jewell to explain the use of their syncstations to help manage the apps on their iPads. They also discussed practicalities such as charging the iPads and explained that this was the responsibility of the learners at Cedars School of Excellence with an expectation that they came to school with their device charged and ready for the day.

cedars_syncstation Interview with Fraser Speirs and Andrew Jewell about the process of syncing the devices (apologies for slight interference in this recording)


1:1 deployment, Apple, Impact on learning, Independent Schools, Teacher

Cedars School of Excellence: Impact on Learning

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iPads part of the everyday life of learning at Cedars

Cedars School of Excellence in Greenock is an independent school catering for children ages from 5 to 17 years. In 2009 they were inspired by the announcement of the Apple’s new iPad that would lead them to become the first school to offer 1:1 iPad provision for learners and staff. Since that time they have been working to integrate the use of this technology into the fabric of learning in their school. We visited them in October 2012 to find out what their experience with their 1:1 approach had been.

We met with Fraser Speirs (computing teacher) and Andrew Jewell (class teacher) to ask them what they had seen in terms of impact on learning as a result of their iPad initiative. Mr Speirs felt that that one of the biggest benefits with subsequent impact on learning was that life in school was very much like life outside of school in terms of their learners being able to access and use digital technology without having to make any adjustments or compromises. He also explained that much of the teaching in the school had been realigned in keeping with what the school felt was a  change of emphasis on what was really important, an emphasis informed and influenced by access to tablet devices, always on access to the web and the range of apps that are now available. One example of this was that there was now less of a focus  on tasks such as Word Processing with greater emphasis being place on developing a delivering effective presentations that communicated a message that was beyond text.

cedars_fspeirsimpact Listen to Fraser Speirs talk about impact on learning