Riverside School Gets A Makeover

Riverside is a small school in East Yorkshire, with less than 130 children and young people with special educational needs. It has recently undergone an extensive refurbishment program. The result has included a bespoke IT room, kitted out with an array of laptops, mini-PCs and furnishings which is making a huge impact on students and teachers alike.

Before Riverside had its tech makeover it had always relied heavily on laptops and iPads. “We were using two main class sets of laptops, which were transported around school using lapsafes (laptop security trolleys) - which was far from ideal,” says IT manager Dan Skinner. “We also had a class set of iPads in an iPad trolley. Like the laptops, these were all bookable resources and moved around school from classroom to classroom as we didn’t have a spare room for a specific ICT classroom.”

IT teacher Nicola Lazenby says that the school’s old equipment was becoming noticeably more sluggish. “Batteries depleted quickly and we frequently had connection issues. A lot of time was wasted powering up, logging on and waiting for them to connect. This in turn led to raised frustration levels from the children, resulting in disengagement and distraction.”

A new ICT room

The new ICT room was opened in early 2021, right in the middle of the second national coronavirus lockdown, but Business Manager Andrew Fuller says that everyone has been delighted with the new provision: “Obviously the school hasn’t been operating as it would normally, due to COVID-19, but having a purpose built IT suite allows us to provide better focused IT lessons across the school. Unfortunately, parents haven’t been able to come into the school since the installation, but I’m sure they’ll be very impressed!”

With many children in school, the impact of the new system has greatly improved IT teacher Nicola’s classroom experience. “The machines power-up effortlessly, there’s no waiting for updates or for the log in screen. The children now have everything they need in front of them with space to work whilst the explanations of activities take place. The children have adapted very well to the new equipment – they find the computers easy to use and the system is simple to navigate. They are now more focussed in all subjects. The children were overjoyed at the change, with comfy chairs, spacious desks and their own PC!”

Not only has the project vastly improved the children’s educational experience, it has also helped to shape the schools future plans. Business Manager Andrew continues: “The project has allowed us to review the use of the laptop trollies which previously we moved around the school. Many of these laptops were becoming out of date and unreliable, this project has allowed us to reassess the way we deliver IT within the school, and we will make the new IT suite a bookable resource to allow maximum use right across the curriculum.”