Digital school

At St Mary's, we prepare our students for the future.

Technology has changed the way in which young people learn, gather information, think and interact. As a consequence, it is our duty to ensure that we are constantly reviewing our processes, teaching and environment so that we can effectively prepare our students for a life beyond school.

A connected school

The whole school has moved to work through a digital platform called Microsoft 365 supported by St Mary's Cloud. All students can now access their school work on any device, wherever they are. Aside from improving efficiency and organisation when completing school work, it gives them the important experience of working in a digital environment which is more akin to what they will face in the workplace once they leave our School. 

As part of this approach, all Senior School and Sixth Form students are given a 1:1 device to use in school.

St Mary's Cloud provides teacher-curated content, accessible to students 24/7, including:

  • Links to handouts
  • Extension work
  • Past examination papers and mark schemes
  • Tests that can be taken and automatically marked
  • Video or audio clips

Student work is saved to St Mary's Cloud, which means a piece of work can be picked back up easily from home. It also makes sharing files and folders simple, so groups of students can collaborate and work remotely.

Extending teacher support

Digital technologies help to improve teaching and learning by:

  • supporting authentic, creative and collaborative learning
  • enabling a wide range of assessment approaches 
  • complementing face-to-face contact
  • encouraging productive learning outside the classroom

Beyond the classroom, teachers use OneNote Class Notebooks to distribute materials to students and to provide personalised comments, feedback and support, direct to student notebooks.

Bringing learning to life

We have been trialling the use of Amazon Echo in the Music department and Library, we are developing a digital leaders programme for our students and investigating ways of bringing resources into classrooms such as virtual field trips.

Here are some other examples of where digital resources are being used to support teaching and learning at St Mary's:

  • OS maps, World Bank, Google Earth and satellite images in Geography
  • Kerboodle textbook, information sheet and video clips in Psychology
  • In Textiles, using SpeedStep to develop ideas in different colourways and the Pure Flow app to produce flow charts.
  • Kahoot and Quizlet to support Food Technology revision
  • Photoshop and Adobe creative suites to allow Art students to create 'joiner' images related to artists such as David Hockney
  • St Mary's Cloud collaborative features to build essay plans in History

Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award (iDEA)

In Senior School, girls study iDEA in Year 10. This innovative programme enables students to develop their digital, enterprise and employability skills, as they progress through a series of online challenges to gain Bronze, Silver and Gold level awards.

These industry-recognised awards support career progression and offer a flexible mix of topics. Girls choose units of study to support their particular interests and ambitions for the future. The iDEA programme covers five key areas:

  • Citizen
  • Worker
  • Maker
  • Entrepreneur
  • Gamer

Discover more about iDEA