Visionary teacher raises attainment with technology at Woodside High School in Wood Green, Haringey

Shane Carey has been Director of ICT and Head of Faculty for ICT, Business & Maths at Woodside High School, Wood Green for just under a year. Relocating from Halifax, his vision was to work in a school where ICT was not having the positive impact on attainment it should be and help to turn this around. Since working at the school, GCSE A-C pass rates for ICT have been predicted to rise from 18% to 86%. The school believes engaging students through the latest technology is dramatically improving attainment.

[ClickPress, Wed Jul 04 2007] Shane Carey has been Director of ICT and Head of Faculty for ICT, Business & Maths at Woodside High School, Wood Green for just under a year. Relocating from Halifax, his vision was to work in a school where ICT was not having the positive impact on attainment it should be and help to turn this around. Since working at the school, GCSE A-C pass rates for ICT have been predicted to rise from 18% to 86%. The school believes engaging students through the latest technology is dramatically improving attainment.

As Head of Faculty for ICT, Business & Maths, one of Shane’s main responsibilities at Woodside is to raise the GCSE A-C pass rate for ICT, an area which the whole school is dedicated to improving. Woodside is using the latest handheld technology from Qwizdom (www.qwizdom.co.uk) to make the learning experience more exciting and interactive. Shane comments: “For our students to get the most out of their lessons, they must enjoy the learning process. We have fantastic ICT equipment at the school and I really believe that technology can make learning fun. Using technology like Qwizdom’s voting system, staff are able to really engage and connect with our young people. This year’s predicted results are testament to this.”

Teachers at Woodside use Qwizdom’s voting system as a fun way to assess the students’ knowledge at the end of a lesson through tests, quizzes and games. Shane comments: “The voting system is a great tool for getting the whole class involved. Even my quieter pupils are able to join in and we’ve had many an entertaining class discussion after the quiz results have been flashed up on the whiteboard.”

The school has also found Qwizdom a great help in quickly identifying students that require more help on a certain topic. When students are taking part in a test or quiz, teachers at Woodside can see instantaneously which questions they are getting right or wrong. This can be a notoriously slow process with paper tests as teachers would have to spend time marking them before establishing how well the class had done. Shane comments: “This way, we can see which topics the class haven’t understood in that same lesson, giving us the chance to go over the material while it’s fresh in the their minds.” Teachers can also see from individual results, which students need extra help so they can discreetly approach them at the end of a lesson.

The school is using Qwizdom as a way to get the students talking about other technologies such as digital cameras. Shane commented: “We wanted to explore the concept of using a digital camera as part of our students’ ICT coursework. I used the voting system to pose questions about the technology, for example whether they had used one before. As Qwizdom allows our students to respond anonymously, two of them were able to admit that they hadn’t. Typically, if I had asked this question and requested a show of hands, none of them would have wanted to admit it in front of their peers. This way, I was able to take them aside after class and help them.”

Woodside has recently been awarded a grant for ICT supplies from the Department for Education & Skills (DfES). The school’s senior management team decided to purchase 36 interactive whiteboards with some of the money. Only certain departments such as maths and science had a whiteboard in the past, but now the entire school is benefiting. Shane comments: “The interactive whiteboards are making a tremendous impact on the students’ interest in their work. Staff use them to display video clips and moving images uploaded from the internet, run the voting quizzes and most importantly, get the class interacting with the technology.”

Woodside is currently working with other secondary school teachers from across the Borough of Haringey on a professional development programme; ‘Transforming Teachers’. They regularly meet together with the Haringey Strategic Team and City Learning Centre staff to develop best practice using ICT across the curriculum. Shane comments: “Staff at Woodside really want to communicate to other teachers in the area just how effective ICT can be, not only to engage and motivate young people, but ultimately, to help raise attainment. Our students don’t want to do badly at school, they just needed to be engaged, which I feel we are now able to do.”

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