Sat Bance is the headteacher at Dalreoch and is someone who has been very keen to ensure that ICTs  permeate the life of learning in his school and that they are not to be seen as an add-on or as a discrete subject. In our interviews with him he explained that he wanted to use the small resource that he had available to him in this pilot as effectively as possible. To do this he and his staff decided to employ a methodology that would see the iPads used in direct teaching contexts in relation to numeracy and literacy in the mornings, but then to be used more freely by the pupils in the afternoons when there was greater scope for inter-disciplinary learning. Mr Bance explained that he was very impressed with the way that the instant access to learning with a device such as an iPad meant that it saved much time otherwise wasted by movement to the traditional ICT suite and the process of logging on etc that comes with that. He felt that the devices were offering his learners a greater freedom to learn.

Mr Bance discussed the issues of sharing an iPad between learners and he argued that the way in which his school had designed and established a labelling system for the devices meant that there had not been any real issues in relation to sharing devices that did not allow them to logon with their own profiles and keep their materials separate and accessible only to them.

You can listen to Mr Bance’s overview on this audio recording:

Overview of the pilot at Dalreoch PS Interview with Sat Bance (HT)