The Mount is an iPad school, which means that iPads are used in teaching and learning, with technology the pupils can easily access.
As Bridget Perks explained to Julia Lewis at BBC Radio York, “It’s part of our daily life. It’s not the be-all and end-all, because we use it as a tool. It’s very useful because it enables us to do more collaborative learning. For instance, pupils can put their work into a central location and share ideas. In the Junior School a recent project involved a Bird Survey where the children did their research on their iPads and then went outside to look at birds and link the two together. Whether it’s in Junior Coding Club or Robotics Club, where the children build and programme their own robots, to A-Level Geography where the girls use their iPads to map mass migrations, IT enhances our learning. We don’t push the iPads or technology, we use it. It is a natural part of life now, so we need to use it and to help build our pupils’ life skills.”
The interview was in measured response to a media backlash against the use of technology in education; a recent article suggested schools were turning children into ‘tech addicts‘.
Regarding social media, Bridget Perks agrees that the use of social media apps and the internet is a problem if it’s not managed properly. The school offers drop-in sessions for parents who want to learn more about the school’s use of IT and iPads.
Children’s Views on iPads
Ava and Emma in J6 were also in favour of learning with iPads.
Ava said, “The iPads help us. In Maths and English. If we want to show each other what we’ve done, we can airplay onto the whiteboard screen and share. From a book, we’re just reading it out and writing it back in, but from an iPad, you can choose lots of different setting, such as in maths games you can choose easier levels or harder levels.”
Emma said, “We use the iPads in Robotics when we programme the robots we’ve made, and we use them a lot in Maths when we play times-tables games. I don’t really understand how people think that schools are pushing it. I feel like it’s our choice because, if we wanted, we could use the iPad or look something up in the dictionary. But it’s very fun using the iPads and I don’t think there’s a down-side to it.”
When Julia Lewis asked whether the girls would prefer to have an hour playing outside or an hour on an iPad, both girls answered, “Outside.”
Listen to the interview here on BBC Radio York’s Listen Again pages (from 48:00) until 23 February 2018