Marlborough St Mary’s Primary School’s new IT suite has opened this week. Thirty brand new small form pc’s together with thirty ipads have replaced the old equipment, which would only run on Windows 7.
Teacher and IT specialist, Kath Black, told Marlborough.news, “We’re all very excited and the children who are in school have already been using the new equipment. It will make such a difference to the IT provision. When the new St Mary’s school opened the old equipment was transferred from the old St Peter’s and St Mary’s schools. It badly needed replacing.
IT is really important in today’s world and a lot of schools are not lucky enough to have a special IT room. The new up-to-date equipment will enable us to be more innovative and to really take advantage of what’s on offer.”
The new equipment, which is smaller, has also meant that the IT room can be reconfigured according to government guidelines thus creating more social distancing.
IT is a very important part of the curriculum at St Mary’s. Every child in the school has a lesson in the IT room once a week in order to learn coding, programming, how to touch type and how to understand algorithms. Pupils also learn about e-safety and there will be a special focus on this in September as a follow-up to all the on-line home-learning during lockdown.
There is also an after school coding club and lunchtime clubs. The school has its own radio station. As a result of lockdown the school has started using Microsoft Teams and will continue to do so when all pupils return in September.
And it’s not just the pupils who are going to benefit from the new IT suite. Kath will be running evening classes in IT for adults in September. There will be courses for complete beginners and a ‘Making the most of your computer’ course which is more advanced. There will also be an iPad course which will help people develop their iPad skills.
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