Sirius Corporation Implements Open Source at Ysgol Maesydderwen

Sirius Corporation, the Open Source services provider reports that it has been working with Powys County Council; introducing a combination of Open Source and proprietary software within the newly refurbished Ysgol Maesydderwen based in Ystradgynlais, near Swansea.

The project, funded by Powys County Council, involved the installation of a complete infrastructure and included the installation of brand new desktops and laptops for both the staff and pupils as well as a hundred new iPads for the pupils to use in class activities and projects.

Nick Talbot, Strategic IT advisor to the Schools Service at Powys County Council commented "We approached Sirius for an innovative solution to our school ICT requirements for the major redevelopment of Ysgol Maesydderwen. We were delighted with Sirius' proposed solution drawing from the best elements of Open Source and proprietary software. We commissioned them to make this vision real, which they did against challenging deadlines and this work has significantly increased the school's ICT confidence and capabilities".

Extensive and thoughtful planning allowed rapid delivery; from emails to document sharing, and a suite of specialist desktop applications which includes Serif, ProTools and Creo. A reliable back-end infrastructure has been put in place with built in redundancy, allowing the school to continue working should either of the server rooms be taken offline. Active Directory was deployed for authentication and management of desktops and laptops, with files being served from Samba running on Debian. Other services such as inventory management have been deployed as virtual machines running on GNU/Linux KVM. Google Apps was selected in consultation with the school to provide email, productivity and remote file services. This is significantly more powerful than their previous solution as well as representing a cost saving, being free for Education use.

Richard Lashley, Deputy Head at Ysgol Maesydderwen said that "the Sirius team were quick to identify our priorities by immersing themselves into school life and listening to learners, staff and governors". He went on to say "any glitches encountered were dealt with professionally to enable the school to have a state of the art system that we continue to refine for the improvement of teaching and learning and we are extremely excited about the future possibilities".

Ysgol Maesydderwen is a small and inclusive school where pupils of all abilities are encouraged to succeed in a caring, orderly and supportive environment. As an 11 – 18 school we can offer continuity for our students and welcome those who choose to join us from other schools. Located in Ystradgynlais, near Swansea, Ysgol Maesydderwen encourages pupils to participate in extra curricular activities and is involved with charity and voluntary organisations within the local community. For more information go to www.ysgolmaesydderwen.co.uk

Sirius is reputed to be the UK's flagship open source solutions provider with 15 years’ experience supporting mission critical enterprise applications and infrastructure. Our consultants, business analysts, IT architects and support engineers work with central and local government agencies, blue-chip multi-nationals, SMEs and start-ups to identify, deploy and manage feature-rich and stable open source solutions. For more information go to www.siriusopensource.com

Former Minister of State for Schools encourages schools to join in major classroom technology study

Former Minister of State for Schools encourages schools to take part in major classroom technology study

Lord Knight, former Minister of State for Schools is calling for primary schools to participate in major new research commissioned by maths resource provider Learning Clip. The study expects to reveal compelling evidence of the benefits of increased feedback by using student response handsets in classrooms.

The research, designed and monitored by the Institute for Effective Education (IEE) at the University of York, follows two earlier studies conducted in 2011/2012. Both demonstrated significant improvements in engagement and achievement in pupils who were taught maths and literacy using the handsets.

“This is an exciting project for schools to participate in. In addition to helping school children improve their numeracy skills, it could pioneer a wider breakthrough in maths learning. Student response technology has been around for some time, but the true potential of these systems is only just coming to be understood,” said Lord Knight.

“In terms of engagement, every pupil participates with every question, but the real impact is in the instant feedback provided to both pupil and teacher. Each knows within seconds when an answer is wrong, allowing the teacher to intervene at the moment when it is most meaningful to the pupil.”

Andrew Foster, Education Consultant at Learning Clip added, “With the initial studies showing pupil attainment levels increasing by 30% and more, we’re extending the research to definitively prove how much impact student response handsets can really have.”

The organisers are appealing to Year 4 teachers in larger primary schools in London to take part. In return, schools will receive a set of Promethean Activexpression student response handsets and a subscription to cloud delivered interactive learning resources from Learning Clip.

For more information or to find out more about getting your school involved in the study contact a.walker@learningclip.co.uk.

For more information about Learning Clip visit www.learningclip.co.uk

Learning with Student Response Handsets

Questions are delivered to pupils on the screen of their handset; their answer can be submitted as text, numeric or multiple-choice and are sent back to the teacher’s computer.

As soon as a pupil has answered, the next question will appear on their screen. Children who are more confident or able can work at a quicker pace, while those who need more time to answer will feel less pressured to keep up and are able to respond discretely.

No marking is required and teachers save preparation time by simply logging on to the Learning Clip website and choosing from a bank of prepared activities and questions. The Learning Clip system collects and marks the answers providing instant feedback to pupils, and a detailed snapshot of the class’s performance for the teacher.