Windsor Academy Trust,
West Midlands, United Kingdom - iPad

Windsor Academy Trust (WAT) is a publicly-funded group of schools in the West Midlands region of the United Kingdom. It provides education to 10,000 K-12 students from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds — including many who live in the top 1% of the country’s highest-need areas.

Since growing from just one institution to now 15, Windsor has strived to bolster underperforming schools and to enhance learning with technology. As part of this goal, WAT deploys iPad to teachers and students, which school leaders say is helping to drive better academic results.

Many of Windsor’s teachers attribute this success to the use of iPad in formative assessment. At the start of a lesson, a teacher uses their choice of app, like Google Docs or Showbie, to pose questions about academic subjects and assess their students’ level of understanding. With Apple Classroom, teachers can see all of their students’ screens at once, allowing them to monitor responses and understand immediately if they need to cover a previous topic again. This also helps educators identify any students who may need additional time understanding a subject, so that everyone can achieve their goals.

Apple Professional Learning offerings have also been instrumental in facilitating educator support and development. Teachers across schools take advantage of the Apple Teacher program to build their knowledge about how to best use iPad for education. They are also encouraged to collaborate on lesson plans at regular professional learning sessions where they share best practices and resources with one another. Some educators throughout Windsor are also Apple Learning Coaches who help their colleagues get the most out of Apple technology in the classroom.

“iPad not only saves our teachers time by giving them quick access to shared lesson planning ideas and resources, but it also encourages them to bring additional creativity to their teaching. It’s redefining how we approach the curriculum,” says Sal Kahn, Assistant Head Teacher at Goldsmith Primary and an Apple Learning Coach.

WAT’s leadership team say their approach to digital learning is making lessons more impactful and also improving results. Since deploying iPad, all WAT schools are now scoring above national standards in attainment, with their secondary schools also above national averages for progress. And 100% of their schools are now rated “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted government inspectors.

With iPad, teachers can use Keynote to create animations during physics lessons, and students can use Google Docs to solve math challenges and Camera to capture pictures of wildlife for environment audits. Across the board, iPad is deepening engagement, increasing learning, and unlocking opportunities for the students across the West Midlands.