It is the vision of St Mary’s to encourage innovation and creativity in our teaching and learning across all our schools, by facilitating one-to-one access to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) resources to achieve excellence for lifelong learning.
St Mary’s School has a fully wireless campus and three well-equipped computer laboratories, for use by the girls during lessons and after school. The resource centre in The Edge has 30 computers with midi keyboards, giving the girls the opportunity to compose music.
All classrooms have interactive white boards and data projectors, which promote a visual element in the teaching environment. Banks of five computers have been installed in several Senior School classrooms, giving the girls easier access to technology for research. Two Prowise Touch TVs have been installed in the Ross & Darragh classrooms, providing a new interactive experience for the students.
The laboratory in the Wantage Centre is used for formal ICT lessons for Forms I. The girls are exposed to a variety of computer skills necessary for the production of content related to the core curriculum subjects. They create presentations using various applications and programs. The creation of podcasts and movies is also included in this curriculum. Recently the girls have been introduced to robotics and coding, and have enjoyed working with Spheros, micro:bits and Lego EV3s.
A number of Windows and Mac computers are also available to the girls in the library and the Resource Centre, for research and enrichment.
Mobile devices
St Mary’s has chosen the iPad as its device of choice. The iPads are used extensively in the classroom as well as for field trips and excursions away from school, for communication, photography and the completion of projects.
iPads have allowed for the facilitation of learning across the school campus and beyond. The girls use the iPads to access resources and create their own interactive notes using apps of their choosing. They are also introduced to a blended learning approach through the use of Google Drive and Google Classroom. Chromebooks are available for individual girls or whole classes to borrow for lessons.
Many girls in the higher grades prefer to use a laptop together with their iPads, as this provides a more dynamic learning environment. In this arena the school is device agnostic, and the girls are using both Mac and Windows laptops.
In addition, the school offers an online eLibrary system, allowing girls to access reading material electronically. iPads have given pupils the opportunity to collaborate and communicate with peers and teachers in an easy, accessible way.