Framlingham College is thrilled to have been recognised as a 2019/2020 Microsoft Showcase School.
Microsoft Showcase Schools are a global community of schools engaged in digital transformation to improve teaching and learning.
Throughout the last year Framlingham College has been actively using Microsoft tools in an innovative and educationally beneficial way for both teachers and pupils at the school. The ‘Bring your own Device’ scheme has focused on personalising learning for the pupils and the use of Microsoft Office 365, and its full range of tools and features such as Onedrive, OneNote, Teams, Makecode, Skype and Flipgrid, has enhanced pupils’ learning outcomes, experiences and developed 21st Century working skills.
It started with a select few teachers experimenting with Microsoft products in one specific class. This quickly expanded and began to filter across all their classes. When pupils started asking “When will we start using OneNote?” this was the moment the transformation really began. Teachers were encouraged to experiment with new tools throughout the school and a culture quickly developed where teachers felt comfortable in using these tools effectively.
Although traditional teaching methods had been used well before the switch to Microsoft, it was about finding a better, more modern way to deliver an educational curriculum. The focus on change was to discover what could be done better.
The majority of academic departments now use Microsoft products including OneNote which acts as a virtual classroom book for preps, class tasks and extension tasks. Students enjoy a fresh 21st century approach to their learning with multimedia rich content, tasks and feedback. Teachers enjoy this fresh approach as it speeds up the setting up of lessons, less printing, more effective approach to marking and the fact that they can mark students’s work anytime of day and on any device. Teachers have found increased freedom, creativity and flexibility in their teaching methods compared to their previous teaching methods.
Microsoft products have also played an integral part in ensuring creativity remains at the heart of our curriculum. The Prep School pupils have been using Paint 3D and Print 3D to design and display their work. Pupils from Years 5 to 11 have been using Makecode in a range of coding tasks including the Robotics Robot Wars Day, an “off –timetable” Computer Science Day where Year 10 program Microbit Robots for a game of football.
Being a Microsoft Showcase school gives the school access to many teaching and learning resources to support and enhance the teaching at the College including giving it links to all other Microsoft showcase schools. There will also be the opportunity to apply for Microsoft Framework Training at the Microsoft Headquarters in London as well as benefitting from loans of devices from the Global Microsoft store and access to Prodigy learning (Microsoft exams).
Thrilled with the recognition, Director of Computer Science, John Harrod, comments: “ We never want to replace traditional teaching methods, we want to enhance them with the use of technology. As a school, we should be educating the pupils to not only pass exams but prepare them for the workplace and this is exactly what these Microsoft suite of tools do. We are thrilled to be a Microsoft Showcase School.”
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