SchoolTerm: A star pupil for Ravenscote

If anyone wants to see the impact that SchoolTerm is having at Ravenscote Junior School, they need look no further than the ICT suite at lunch-time. Every day, pupils of all ages stream into the classroom to use the latest educational applications on its up-to-the-minute desktops. They and their teachers can keep their work for a variety of subjects, including internet favourites and settings, in one place. They know it will be backed up centrally once they’ve saved it.

‘We open the ICT suite for half an hour every lunch-time for each year to use on a rotational basis,’ said Jennie Ratcliff, ICT Subject Leader at Ravenscote. ‘Pupils can’t wait to get in when it’s their turn. We thought they would want to go onto the internet to look at their favourite websites or search for things. Instead, they’re using their time to improve work they’re already doing at school. It’s great; we’ve never had take up like it before.’

Such an enthusiastic response to SchoolTerm is testament to its ability to support Ravenscote’s 600+ pupils in all their learning. What started as something for ICT classes quickly spread to other lessons when pupils asked to use it to help them with their work in other subjects.

‘The great thing is that pupils are able to use all the software which means they have equal access regardless of where they are in the school and what class they are in, ‘ said Jennie. ‘ICT is being used to support all the pupil’s learning. They are learning skills for life which is in line with that the Government’s wants to see.’

In this way, SchoolTerm is helping to give pupils their own personalised learning spaces – a key feature of the Department for Children, Schools & Families (DCSF)’s new secondary National Curriculum. So when pupils leave Ravenscote to move up to their next school, they will be familiar with that idea and potentially will be able to take all their previous work with them.

It’s proving to be a hit with teachers too. Not only can they log-in to their work at home, they can move from one classroom to another and know how things will work. Report-writing and lesson preparation is less time-consuming and more flexible.

It’s a long way from where Ravenscote was 18 months ago. The Surrey school had an old system that suffered from lack of access and ageing PCs. It needed an unmanageable level of technical support to keep it fully operational. Printers were not networked and there was no consistency in applications.