A lesson in resilience and innovation

Beginning a “dream come true” digital transformation

Downe House School’s digital transformation journey began after an Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI) review in March 2017. Unusually, McClymont says the ISI advisory notes following the inspection were “a dream come true”. 

As the school’s director of IT, McClymont was thrilled to see an exhortation to “explore the use of information and communications technology to enhance teaching and learning”. He began gathering real-world examples of best practice before approaching the school’s headteacher with some proposals.

Emma McKendrick, Headteacher at Downe House School, had four key objectives for the technology deployment. She recalls, “It had to genuinely enhance teaching and learning. It needed to be flexible enough to allow people to teach in different ways. The staff had to come with us on the journey. And the girls had to be well prepared for the next stage of their education and for university.”

Microsoft is a natural choice for schools

McClymont knew that more than 90 percent of universities use Microsoft 365, so adopting this would be the best option to prepare pupils for the next steps in their education. However, he says the penny-drop moment for him came during a visit to Sweden.  

“Sweden is known for its progressive use of technology in education,” he explains, “and it was there I first joined the dots that the schools which were having the most success were the ones that had the same platform, hardware and software. They avoided all the ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) headaches and pupils and staff could all support each other.”

The School chose to take a 1:1 approach to rolling out Surface devices for the entire staff and student body. At the same time, it moved to a cloud-based IT estate with Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Azure. This created the integrated best-practice solution to which the School aspired.

A phased rollout aids acceptance

The project began in September 2017, when the leadership team and department heads were given Microsoft Surface devices. This way, the teaching staff could become confident with the hardware before pupils were expected to be using it. The School invested heavily in staff training and staff were encouraged to explore the possible.

In September 2018, the Year Seven cohort became the first year group in which each pupil was required to have a Microsoft Surface device. Although the School was worried there might be some pushback from parents, McClymont says they received nothing but positive comments.

“Many parents said, ‘thank goodness you’ve made the decision for me’,” reports McClymont. “As long as you build the case, parents will be happy with it.” Building a coherent digital skillset, avoiding lengthy discussions about recommended specifications and creating a common and supported platform were all key messages. For parents, the scheme was easier and, often, cheaper than the alternatives.

Transforming the classroom

Katharine Henson is a Mathematics teacher and Director of Curriculum Administration and Digital Learning at Downe House. Before the rollout of Microsoft Surface devices, she had a desktop PC in her office and a collection of paper resources in her department office, her office and her staff room pigeonhole. Almost every classroom had its own whiteboard technology.

Henson remembers that “going over to the portability of Microsoft Surface with all the power of a desktop and all the benefits of something you can carry about and write on was really exciting”.

The School’s vision of enabling teachers to work seamlessly across the campus, from office to classroom – whatever classroom they are teaching in – has freed up more time for learning. Instead of logging in and looking for resources before they can start teaching, teachers simply open their Microsoft Surface devices. They can choose to connect to a docking station or wirelessly project to the screen in the classroom. Teachers are free to move around and the pupils can also share their screens as well.

McClymont’s team deployed Microsoft Teams for staff and students to use. Each class had a dedicated Team and teachers standardised on setting all homework through the app. This way, staff saved on lesson time, pupils knew exactly where to find assignments and it helped with planning. The meetings functionality also came in useful for maintaining contact with pupils when they were ill or attending university interviews, for example.

Drawing on the resources available from Microsoft, some of the teaching staff pursued the twenty-first century learning pathway. Henson, for example, is a Certified Educator and a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert. With this came the confidence to innovate and experiment. 

Empowering flexible learning

“Microsoft Surface is a four-in-one device, which offers flexibility for users. I’m really passionate about the accessibility features,” states McClymont. “Giving the girls a tool to use in the way they like that offers the best support for the way they learn is key.”

Henson agrees: “Some of the girls use Immersive Reader and we do have some students for whom the closed captioning of some products is essential. Having these features in Microsoft 365 isn’t only helpful for the students involved. As a teacher, you’re not reliant on the source material to be captioned. Our Learning Skills department embraced Microsoft Surface and Microsoft 365 very early on.”

A myriad of benefits for pupils and teachers

The benefits of uniformity are also easy to list. Henson says, “From a Maths teacher’s point of view, it’s difficult enough when you have twenty pupils in the room all with a different calculator. That’s a real barrier to your lesson. Now they’re all on the same devices, it’s the same set of solutions. That’s helpful for staff and it’s great to see the girls helping each other.”

But there are additional benefits specific to the particular set of technologies chosen by the Downe House team. If a device is lost or damaged, pupils can access a bank of Microsoft Surface Go devices the School offers out via a loan scheme. “Within 15 minutes, they can be back in business,” says McClymont.

Henson agrees: “There is reduced stress on pupils. How many teenagers back up their files? Now we avoid the worries of lost laptops. If you’ve got your Microsoft account and all of the joined-upness of Microsoft 365, it doesn’t matter. It’s all there for you – and that’s another bonus.”

“At home I’ve got a shelf of ring-binders full of master copies of all the courses I’m delivering,” Henson continues, “now that’s all condensed into one Microsoft Surface device and Microsoft Azure. And if it’s damaged, all I have to do is go to the IT Department and they can give me another one… I log in with my Microsoft account and I haven’t lost anything.”

A healthier, greener approach

Getting rid of all the ring-binders, textbooks and exercise books is a relief for teachers. It’s also healthier for the girls because they aren’t carrying such weight around. This is achieved without compromising flexibility or learning. Pupils who prefer using a pen can continue to write directly onto their Microsoft Surface devices using their Microsoft Surface Pens. “And until you can actually write on your computer, you can’t do maths on it,” adds Henson.

One of the most unexpected benefits has been the massive drop in terms of printing costs, reports McClymont. Typically, a term of printing required 576,443 sheets of paper – the equivalent of 7.16 trees. By the 2020 Michaelmas term, that had fallen by 46% to the equivalent of 3.19 trees, or a saving of 1,180kg of CO2 per term.

“And it’s not just the environmental resources,” adds Henson, “it’s the time resource too – the amount of time the staff was spending standing next to photocopiers. I’ve barely used a photocopier in the last four years and, for me, that’s an enormous benefit.”

In fact, teachers have won time back in many ways: most notably when creating lesson plans and marking work. Plus, there is a new interactivity to marking. Teachers can now interact with students on a live document in Microsoft Teams to offer immediate support with work where and when it is needed – offering targeted one-to-one support and promoting the very best learning outcomes no matter the location of the pupil or teacher.

COVID-19 precipitates further transformation

By February 2020, the use of Microsoft Surface devices and Microsoft 365 was well established throughout the School. Only the upper year groups were still using a plethora of different hardware. The benefits the lower years were seeing in terms of support, collaboration and continuity were yet to work up through the School to those year groups.

By that point, however, rumblings about the pandemic and a possible lockdown were beginning to intensify. “We had a fortnight: you think we will have to do this? Can we do this? Oh my gosh! We’ve got to do this!” Henson remembers. “On the day we did have to disperse, we weren’t having to take loads of equipment or books with us. I just walked out of School with my Microsoft Surface in my briefcase and that was it. I could do pretty much everything I can do on campus. It was the same for our pupils all over the world. It felt seamless from my point of view.”

Suddenly, the meetings functionality of Microsoft Teams became essential for lessons. With Teams, the staff could easily record all the lessons delivered and these were auto-uploaded to Microsoft Stream so pupils could access them and it was easier for teachers.

The leadership team also created additional support channels for staff using Microsoft Teams. These have been particularly well used during lockdown and their use continues today. “It’s a dynamic platform for keeping in touch with classes and colleagues,” says Henson. “It really has kept us together as a community and people have realised how powerful a tool this is.”

In fact, the School has launched a new Tuesday morning coffee break on Microsoft Teams. And the use of Microsoft Teams to deliver INSET training for a busy school with staff operating late and weekend hours has proved invaluable. Henson says, “We’ve even had staff who have been shielding and self-isolating and they could continue to deliver lessons. It has given us a huge amount of resilience and flexibility.”

Sharing best practice throughout education

“I’ll always be grateful for the ISI inspection,” concurs McClymont, “it has given us a head start on this tricky situation.” The school now actively shares knowledge gained from its digital transformation via its Microsoft Showcase School days and Teach Meets to share good practice with other schools. 

“When we looked to see what universities were using, we saw it was Microsoft,” McClymont continues, “now we’re being canvassed by prep schools about what we’re using and that’s great for us. If we can help them move onto Microsoft Teams those girls can come to us with an already good understanding of Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 and that skillset.”

A culture of continual innovation

The desire to foster innovation is evident within the School as well. “Just because we’re in a positive place at the moment, we don’t want to stand still,” McClymont affirms. “When we can be a normal school again, how do we pick up the things that have worked well during lockdown? Adopt those technologies into our lesson plans? And develop those skillsets?”

To this end, the school is working with The Tablet Academy to reinvent lessons. There’s some really exciting work going on, helping teachers to transition lesson plans into tangible, creative new approaches. Henson is excited by the potential for further innovation: “We’ve learnt how to be resilient with our Microsoft Surface devices and how that plays into the Downe House DNA. Now we need to explore what other elements of our Downe House DNA the Microsoft Surfaces can play into – such as being globally outward looking and collaborative.”

“We have a great platform on which to build,” agrees McClymont, “And we want to do more than replicate traditional lessons. This is absolutely the time to be creative and innovative.”