Be Included...Be Connected

3,200 Chromebooks secure trust-wide roll out of home learning!

As one of the largest academy trusts in Enfield which prides itself on its inclusive ethos, Connect Education Trust has taken the decision to invest approximately £750,000 to purchase over 3,200 additional Chromebooks and data devices so that every child in the trust from Year 1 and upwards is able to access our programme of digital learning, regardless of whether they are learning in school or remotely from home.

Connect Education Trust has been pioneering digital learning techniques for many years and prides itself on being a tech-savvy education trust.

The use of digital technology to support teaching and learning has always been a strong feature of Connect Education Trust. This has been given renewed emphasis by the recent lockdown and the need to enable continuity of the curriculum at home through remote teaching and learning.

Connect Education Trust is already a user of the Google suite of digital learning tools in the state education sector, and has set up Google Classroom for pupils across its schools.

Lifelong learning

In order to succeed in this ever-changing landscape, Connect Education Trust believes that its pupils are going to have to learn new skills later in their life. They’ll have to stay relevant to the world around them and therefore will probably have to reinvent themselves over and over again. This will mean that in addition to offering our pupils a broad curriculum and how to use tools that are useful now, we should help pupils know how to learn and understand new tools themselves – a skill that will endure. In order to do this, we will need to continue to create within them a love of learning. Pupils will need to want to learn independently in order to succeed in a job market which requires lifelong learning.

To achieve this, we will need to make learning challenging, interesting, rewarding and fun for our pupils. In turn pupils will take more control of their own learning in their own time. There are many tools available to help us create this type of learning environment - 1:1 devices will be pivotal in enabling this journey. We will also look at using collaboration tools through e-boards and apps, e-learning – including gamification of e-learning, virtual, augmented and mixed realities – all of these will help us transform learning into something that’s exciting and that our pupils actually want to do.

Training

Training has been available for all staff on how to use a range of Google tools so that learning can continue, whether it is face to face in the classroom or remotely from home. This also includes providing access to high quality teaching and learning resources online for various year groups.

Connect Education Trust Strategy

Connect Education Trust will continue with its strategy to work hard to upskill the next generation with core knowledge to ensure that all our pupils are properly prepared for the challenges they’ll face in the 21st century. Our educational strategy for ICT also built around closing the skills gap in computer science and offering equality of access through digital learning opportunities to all our pupils in the Trust.

We are proud to be included and to be connected

We know that you can have the best digital learning strategy in the world, the best content, and brilliantly trained teachers to deliver it, but if pupils can’t access it at home, then they will learn nothing. Being included goes right to the heart of who we are at Connect Education Trust, and so we want to make sure that all our pupils can access home learning.