At The Halley Academy our digital strategy complements and enhances the learning experiences of our students.
All students receive a free Chromebook device which they bring to the Academy every day as part of their learning equipment.
Our experience from the Covid pandemic has highlighted how technology, when used in the right way, can help students to: engage deeply and critically with new learning; use homework to build upon their learning in the classroom; and build their confidence in using technology safely and successfully.
We do not have a separate and discrete digital learning strategy. Rather, we conceptualise this area of learning as integral and central to our overall teaching and learning strategy across the Academy.
Our Approach
- Is shaped and driven by the latest evidence-based research into how students learn best;
- Ensures that our digital provision complements and enhances classroom based learning, by supporting knowledge retrieval, working hard and reducing extraneous load;
- Equips students and staff with the digital knowledge to help them make informed, evidence-based decisions about how to use digital resources to support their learning;
- Continues to prioritise the quality of teaching as more important than how lessons are delivered;
- Engages the home-school partnership, so that parents feel confident in using technology to enhance their child’s learning;
- Embeds a blended learning approach to knowledge acquisition at the heart of our curriculum delivery, so that homework is used as a powerful, integrated and innovative tool to support student progress;
- Develops students’ digital literacy across the curriculum, as part of our commitment to educating the whole-child, so that they can play an active and informed role in an increasingly technologically driven, 21st century society;
- Ensures access to, and engagement with, technology for all students, especially those falling into multiple vulnerable categories.
All physical classes have access to a corresponding and actively used virtual classroom on the Google platform. All resources for lessons are uploaded prior to, and accessible after, lessons. All homework tasks are set on Google Classroom, and all students actively use Sparx Reader, an online virtual library of fiction, non-fiction and foreign language texts.
As part of their IT lessons in Year 7, all students complete the Google Level 1 Skills qualification, so they can confidently and safely use the Google Suite to enhance their learning in school.
The Google Guardian tool allows parents/carers to get updates on their child’s weekly homework tasks, and their engagement with this.