An important and valuable change

Technology As Part Of Everyday Life

Enabling and supporting pupils in developing the information and communications technology skills they will need in the world beyond school is central to our educational provision.

With one-to-one devices, this will be ‘taught’ and weaved into all lessons as well as other aspects of the pupils’ day-to-day school experience.

Creativity

Creativity is key to this move – for both pupils and teachers. The option to utilise audio notes and clips, video recordings, pictures, websites and educational apps within a lesson opens up a world of possibilities.

The recommended devices will allow pupils to draw, write and type, and annotate to a very high quality in addition to being able to capture and store images of any work that they do on paper.

Organisation Of Resources And Independent Learning

Using Teams, OneNote and SharePoint, means all notes, work, resources and communications will be stored, manipulated and shared in and from the same online space – this will be powerful for both teachers and pupils.

Pupils will take away from lessons links to key websites and revision activities, video and audio recordings of key points, working with a reliable and user-friendly platform that will encourage them to share ideas.

FEEDBACK, COLLABORATION AND COMMUNICATION

Devices allow for more seamless interaction between pupil and teacher – either in the lesson or beyond it.

Likewise, through OneNote, Teams and SharePoint – as well as via a number of interactive educational apps – there is potential to modernise and diversify the ways in which pupils collaborate on a task, working together inside or outside of the classroom.

“Technology is just a tool. In terms of getting the kids working together & motivating them, the teacher is the most important.”

Our recommended devices

Device Specification

For some time, Dauntsey’s has been a ‘Microsoft School’ and our choice of one-to-one devices for pupils reflects that. The school will be using Windows 11 as its operating system and Microsoft 365 and Teams to provide the core product suite. Teachers all use Microsoft Surface Pro devices as these provide the best platform to run the software.

We strongly recommend that where possible, pupils should have either a Microsoft Surface Pro or Surface Go device. These are designed for education and are widely used in schools.

Key Features

MICROSOFT SURFACE PRO

Recommended for pupils in Upper School.

• More powerful and feature-rich compared to the Surface Go 3, it can handle more power consuming programs e.g. Adobe suite.

• The battery life of the Surface Pro 9 is up to 16 hours.

• 13” PixelSense™ Flow Display.

• Budget-friendly option that is still highly portable and versatile.

• It has a smaller 10.5-inch PixelSense touchscreen display.

MICROSOFT SURFACE GO

Recommended for pupils in Lower School.

Alternative Devices

• The battery life of the Surface Go 3 is up to 11 hours.

• The Surface Go 3 is lighter and far more portable than the Surface Pro 9.

• The Go benefits from a headphone jack whilst the Surface Pro 9 will require an adapter.

The school is able to support pupils who already have an iPad or another high quality device, provided that it meets the minimum specification necessary to access the teaching and the curriculum. This is particularly important with regard to inking.

ALL DEVICES MUST:

• be able to quickly and reliably connect to the school’s internet

• be able to access and run Microsoft 365 products

• have a keyboard or keyboard function

• be capable of accurate on-screen inking

• have a high quality camera

• have a battery lifetime of at least six hours

• have a “standby to operational” time of less than 30 seconds

• be able to connect to a discrete set of headphones

A key feature of the Surface Pro and Surface Go is the ability to complete high quality on-screen inking. Inkability allows the devices to be used as an effective replacement for paper, making possible the creation and storage of handwritten notes and diagrams on screen. A device that can blend written and typed information opens the way for a multitude of applications in the classroom. Therefore, a stylus or pen becomes of huge benefit to learning, especially in subjects such as Maths, Art, Chemistry, Physics and DT where a standard keyboard simply isn’t an appropriate or natural way to interact with the materials.