Two more schools get Digital School Status

The Digital Schools Award continues to grow with a further two new schools being awarded Digital Schools status. They are: Rathoe National School in Co Carlow and St Brigid's National School in Castleknock Dublin 15.

Rathoe National School

Rathoe National School in Carlow is the first school in the county to receive the award.  ICT plays a pivotal role in Learning and Teaching in this school.  The school has invested significant resources in ICT in recent years.  There is an Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) in every classroom, and much of the learning and teaching makes use of these boards and related software.  The use of ICT runs right across the whole curriculum including music, PE and language and there is a sense of freshness among the staff in their enthusiasm for using ICT and they are conscious of the need to continually update their skills and to further develop the school website. 

There are plans to fundraise to increase the number of computers in the school.  The Board of Management and an active Parents Association are enthusiastic about the use of ICT and keen to allocate whatever funding they can manage to increase the amount of hardware available to the school.

The Principal Bláthnaid McDermott and ICT coordinator Karen Moore as well as all the staff are to be congratulated for achieving this award and for their keen interest in developing ICT resources to further enhance the learning and teaching process in the school. Rathoe hopes to have improved broadband access soon to further develop ICT integation in the school.  This is not the only award Rathoe has recently received it also got a very prestigious award for science excellence.

St Brigid's National School

St Birgid’s National School Beechpark Lawn, Castleknock is the first Digital School in the Dublin 15 area. ICT plays a central role in this school's in learning and teaching.  The school has built up its ICT resources over a number of years with successful fund raisng events and investment in ICT is well planned and supported by parents and Board of Management.  Interactive Whiteboards (IWBs) are in use in 12 of the classrooms and there are plans to purchase additional boards over the coming years until all classes are so equipped (27 classrooms in all).
The use of ICT is universal throughout the school.  There is an atmosphere of enthusiasm and innovation about the school and an imperative among staff to develop their skills in ICT. In each class there is ample evidence of ICT use in learning and teaching   All IWBs are well utilised for example in classes in Gaeilge (Infants), Maths (5th), library use age (3rd) and History (6th). 
There is a large, commodious, fully equipped Computer Room and each class is allocated time there on block release.  All work done in the Computer Room by the ICT Co-ordinator is curriculum based and directly relates to work being done in the classrooms.  Each classroom also has at least one computer. Requests for new equipment are dealt with sympathetically by Board and parents are anxious to fundraise to purchase new equipment.

ICT is comfortably rooted in the learning process in St Brigid’s and in evidence everywhere. The school is fortunate to have a number of staff who are “expert” in ICT.  During annual Teaching Practice by students from the Training Colleges, CPD is timetabled in so that staff can attend for 1.5 hours in-school and 1.5 hours after school.  In this way staff were trained in on the use of IWBs and also in different aspects of word processing, spreadsheets etc and in new educational software. Some members of staff also organise a summer course for staff on different ICT topics.  NCTE courses and Education Centre courses are also brought to the attention of staff.

Both the School Library and Teachers’ Resource Library have been integrated into the ICT fabric of the school.  Each book has been catalogued and assigned a barcode.  To take a book out, the teacher or child has to scan the barcode on the book and then scan a barcode assigned to each person.  In that way there is full traceability on each book and the whole system works like clockwork.

Databases are used to record and monitor student results which allow analysis of groups and individual performance.  This is a very practical way to keep the Board of management informed of how the children are performing on an annual basis and allows for trends to be seen over time.  An individual child’s performance can also be shown over his/her whole time in school and again trends can be easily spotted.

The school has also been involved in quite a number of projects – Dissolving Boundaries, Empowering Minds, Claymation and the IWB Evaluation Project.  There was ample evidence throughout the school of project work using ICT, such as digital stories, videos using Photo Story 3, Claymation videos etc.  It was quite clear that ICT is deeply rooted in the Learning and Teaching in St Brigid’s.  There is clear evidence of a “can do” spirit among staff and an enthusiasm for innovation. Congratulations to the Principal Denis Courtney and teachers Nicola Fay and Terry Duffy as well as all the staff for their work in achieving the award.