Back to School and Back to the Future for Accrington Pupils

Children heading back to a new term at an Accrington primary school have a treat in store, in the form of a brand new state-of-the-art ICT suite.

The Mayor of Hindburn, Councillor Judith Addison and the Mayoress, Councillor Kathleen Pratt, visited the school to formerly declare the ICT suite ready for use. While cutting the red tape, The Mayor was delighted to be opening the ICT suite and though it was wonderful, and felt the children will fully benefit from the new equipment, and will make excellent use of it.

Pupils’ lessons will be transformed with newly networked desktop computers and laptops and one of the most advanced teaching aids, a fully interactive and internet enabled BigPad, in place of a traditional chalk or whiteboard.

ICT specialist, Stockport-based Midshire, won the contract to design, supply, project-manage and deliver the new facility during the summer in readiness for Autumn term – and will provide on-going technical support.

Head teacher at Baxenden St John’s C.E. Primary School, Mrs Christina Regan, said that all the children at the 200-pupil school would benefit from the investment. “The facility will be used cross-curricular, from reception class to year six. Until now we’ve used combination of stand-alone pcs that were not networked, and borrowed facilities at a local secondary school about half a mile away on alternate weeks, with pupils walking through all kinds of weather to their lesson.

“The BigPad is fantastic and will be multi-purpose as we’ll use it for governors’ meetings as well as classwork. We continue to raise money to fund the project but we’re really pleased with what Midshire has accomplished. We went out to three companies to find the right one for us and we had very positive feedback from other schools that had used Midshire; and they were particularly strong on technical support, which is critical for us.”
Midshire ICT specialist, Stuart Carruthers, added: “The suite is housed in what used to be a music room. We integrated all of the PCs, installed a server, benched the room, sorted out the electrics and set up the network’s security and file-sharing. With everything synchronised and re-imaged to match, teaching with the system will be much easier, as children will be looking at the same screen images and menus.

“The BigPad will make lessons much more exciting and engaging as topics can be explored real-time and ideas and notes can be captured and either saved or printed for further study.”

Up to 30 children will be able to use the suite at any one time.

If you would like to discuss your schools ICT requirements please contact Phil Marshall on:

Direct Dial: 0161 494 3783
Mobile: 07850 633240

or Email Phil