Digital Device Provision

We want to give our pupils the life skills and understanding to be ahead of others in terms of employability and optimum working practices, and recognise that technology will play an important role in this.

Pupils at Berkhamsted need to leave the School confident that they can safely navigate the wider world in which they live and will work. Universities and businesses are expecting students and employees to be digitally literate and have a high awareness of their personal digital footprint.

According to Microsoft, “Within the next two decades, 90% of jobs will require some level of digital proficiency.” Creating strong digital working habits will support Berkhamsted students in their future professional journeys.

Some of the sought-after skills professionals will need include:

• Document Creation, Collaboration, and Management: Being able to create, format, and collaborate on digital documents with teammates is key to unlocking a digitised workplace. Failure to do so can lead to lost time, poor communication, and errors in analysis, all of which can have a big impact on business profitability and outcomes.
• Project Collaboration and Management: The ability to start, work on, and complete projects in collaboration with co-workers—whether located across the cubicle or across the world—is an essential skill.
• Focus and Attention Management: In today’s constantly connected world, workers are bombarded with stimuli from multiple devices, apps, and information services all demanding attention. Being able to rank tasks, manage time, and juggle distractions is essential to learning how to prioritize and hone focus.
• Communication: Workers spend an average of 28 percent of their workweek (or more) reading and answering e-mail. That makes efficient use of digital communications a must-have skill. Even modest gains in efficiency would free up substantial resources for other tasks.
• Digital Etiquette: Digital etiquette, sometimes referred to as “netiquette,” is the dos and don’ts of online communication. Employees need to learn how to maintain a smart social presence. This involves maximizing brand messaging without jeopardizing the company’s reputation.
• Search and Research: Knowledge of how to search the Internet and the vastness of digital archives is key to many business applications. Employees must be able to quickly and effectively search for relevant and accurate data, and distinguish fact from fantasy.
• Platform Flexibility: The ability to navigate across several devices and platforms (including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and wearable devices) is now a critically important skill. Failure to adapt can lead to lost time, compatibility issues, and the inability to leverage the tools available.
• Security and Privacy: Data and security breaches due to human error are ever-increasing in the digital realm. Employees must be well-trained in security and privacy awareness, and know how to use their businesses’ specific safeguard practices.

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Not necessarily. Our vision is for Berkhamsted pupils and teachers to use technology in a blended learning environment; complementing existing teaching styles by using devices to enhance, and in some cases transform, pupils’ learning experiences. We continue to value the importance of ensuring that all our pupils, without exception, are able to read and write fluently and are fully numerate. We see mobile technology as an additional tool to enhance opportunities for pupils to excel, and it is more important to reflect qualitatively on usage in terms of learning outcomes and progress where technology has facilitated good work, rather than tallying up lessons or hours.

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Nationally more and more teachers are reducing their usage of textbooks, and are using online resources instead. DDP will offer more flexibility for combining digital resources, including subscription resources, online materials from the web and electronic versions of textbooks. In addition, DDP will mean that departments can reduce the use of paper and exercise books in favour of digital work where it best suits the needs of teachers and learners. Initially, this will vary between subjects and Year groups, and will develop as the School community becomes more skilled and develops robust habits for digital learning. Through training, teachers will explore worked examples of planning which seek to understanding the pros and cons of the choices available: e.g. precision diagram drawing, annotating documents, mental maths, redrafting written pieces, illustrating work, and gathering research. In practical terms, departments will establish for Senior and Sixth students where their work ‘lives’. If students complete offline / handwritten work, it can be photographed and stored with digital work so that everything is kept online, and students can reduce the amount of ‘lost learning’ from lessons which currently goes uncaptured or recorded.

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We will make school-wide expectations of behaviour clear to staff as part of our internal process and to students when DDP is launched, including managing off-task behaviours. We are also investigating software that will allow teachers to monitor pupil use, as well as considering arrangement of classroom furniture. Wireless connection for teacher devices means that teachers are not obliged to teach from the front of the room, and can circulate actively amongst students to monitor their work.

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Screen size is relatively small so some flexibility about switching between active windows and working with multiple online resources is needed. Whilst this may be frustrating initially for some learners; we know that they are usually agile users of multiple apps on their phones, and can transfer this skillset to their schoolwork. Teachers can explore how best to deliver resources to them in a responsive and coherent way through tools such as OneNote and Firefly.

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Improving students’ typing speed will become a more significant priority in Year 7. We already teach approximately 4-5 lessons in Years 7 and 8 ICT with brief revisit in Year 9. We subscribe to an online course to support students’ progress, and assess typing speed annually. It will be important to boost typing skills further, as slow keyboard use (less than 25 wpm) may be an obstacle to progress. Nonetheless, we are also keen to highlight that the Surface device pen is a powerful inking tool and students can also handwrite on the Surface very effectively.

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The Digital Wellbeing Framework has proved successful in improving mobile phone usage and creating a better atmosphere in School. Therefore, in Year 1, we will maintain the current zones and apply the same rules to Surface devices as to mobile phones. Some reflection will be needed about Nash Harris Dining Hall with regard to the 6th Form. We will review the DWF in the latter part of Year 1 to reframe it for the start of Year 2, taking into account the fact that no student should need to use their mobile phone for learning once Year 2 has begun.

In terms of physical wellbeing, it is important that we educate staff and students on the importance of posture and eye health. There is a lot of debate in the research community about the real effects of screens on mental health and sleep, so we advocate for balanced and blended learning experiences which do not depend on screens 100% of the time, without setting arbitrary time limits.

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