Technology
World Education Summit
On Tuesday the 19th March 2024 Connect Education Trust presented at the World Education Summit.
Shortlisted for MAT Excellence Awards
We are thrilled to be shortlisted for the Digital Innovation Award. This is a great recognition of the impressive work being done in our schools. Congratulations to the other finalists Academies Enterprise Trust, Chiltern Learning Trust, Oasis Community Learning and Vision Multi Academy Trust.
More information about the awards, supported by Optimis Education (part of Shaw Trust) and Confederation of School Trust. - #MATExcellenceAwards
Digital School Awards
Connect Education Trust is delighted to inform you that two of its member schools, Bowes Primary and Chesterfield Primary, have been awarded Digital School status for their innovative teaching methods and efficient use of technology. These schools are among the pioneers in England to receive this award, which recognises excellence in digital learning and teaching. We extend sincere thanks to the Digital School Programme team, especially Anna Doody and Aoife O'Connor, for their remarkable support. Congratulations to both schools for this outstanding achievement!
HP and AMD are proud sponsors of the Digital Schools Awards programme which has recently been extended to England. This expansion is a significant step toward empowering teachers and students across the UK with the tools and skills they need to excel in a digital age.
To become a digital school, Bowes and Chesterfield demonstrated strategies that empowered students with digital skills whilst also ensuring a secure and inclusive educational environment where every student, regardless of ability, can thrive.
Connect Education Trust - Be Connected
Connect Education Trust has been pioneering digital learning techniques for many years and prides itself on being tech-savvy.
Effective technology integration enhances teaching and learning experiences. It promotes pupils’ engagement, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity.
The Trust took the decision to invest over £1million to purchase Chromebooks and mobile devices so that every child across our schools can access our program of digital learning.
All schools within the Trust use Google workspace for Education which provides tools to aid teaching and learning such as Google classroom, Google Docs, Google Meet, Google Forms and Google chat.
NAO robots are used to provide personalised and adaptive learning experiences for pupils such as English as a second language, learning a foreign language (Spanish), reading and SEN. This has improved social skills and self-esteem.
The Moki’s have helped to develop health habits and have provided teachers with data to monitor children’s activity levels incorporating movement breaks in the day.
Virtual reality has provided more immersive learning experiences in class. It has allowed our pupils to explore new environments and scenarios. The impact is pupil engagement and retention of information has significantly improved.
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 £3/4 million 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 throughout the current period of school closures.
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 to enable them to lead remarkable futures. 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 Google tools so that learning can continue. Schools have created days of live-streaming lessons for pupils. As well as providing access to high quality teaching and learning resources online for various year groups.
Connect Strategy
Connect Education Trust will continue with its strategy to work hard to up skill 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.