Partnership with Hable enabling Digital Strategy implementation

September 30, 2020

I’ve been absolutely amazed by how our staff have engaged with the technology, even those who may have considered themselves technophobes. I think part of it has been the support system around them, between Hable, our in-house digital champions and digital support team. We are learning from each other.

Gavin Turner, Director of teaching and learning

 

 

Conceived over a year ago, the College’s Digital Strategy aims to deliver on our Headmaster’s vision to embrace the opportunities of digital learning to better prepare current and future generations of Bradfieldians for the digital landscape they face in the world beyond Bradfield.

That foresight to invest in infrastructure and technology throughout 2019 proved pivotal. When the pandemic forced the closure of schools, the College already had a platform in place to deliver a full education remotely and set about accelerating an ambitious plan to roll out Microsoft Teams to all of our staff to support the fully remote teaching programme.

The College had been working with technology deployment specialist Hable to develop the Digital Strategy and it is thanks to this partnership that we were able to achieve a rapid delivery of our technical and governance work and roll out the technology to our teaching staff in just a matter of days.

Hable ran training sessions for our staff in preparation for the remote summer term, helping teachers understand and utilise Teams, from the very basics of classroom setups to screen recordings and using forms as well as all of the features of the Microsoft 365 software suite.

 

The differentiator between Hable and the other companies is that all the trainers have actually been teachers before, this makes such a difference. There is this immediate rapport and resonance between the trainers and our staff.

Gavin Turner, director of teaching and learning

 

The technology specialist helped our teachers learn new skills which became vital for the remote delivery of education. Bespoke co-operation with individual departments meant a variety of teachers needs were met. For example teachers in the Art Department fully utilised video content, recording techniques and collating videos for our pupils to use, all of which required a sense of mastery over technology, Teams and the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.

 




 

The teachers have shown a genuine commitment to delivering the best education they can whatever the circumstances. All of the teacher’s training sessions happened during holiday time and they were not mandatory. Yet, a huge proportion of staff attended all of the training sessions offered.

Hable

 

In the early stages of our Digital Strategy deployment the College had just 20 Teams set up and 10 group calls taking place. The rapid expansion during the period of remote education means we now have over 140 colleagues trained on the platform, with over 650 Teams creating 3,000 channel messages and 5,000 chat messages.

Our Director of Teaching and Learning Gavin Turner has been full of praise for the partnership with Hable. “It’s had a really significant impact on the students. Some pupils have taken to it like a duck to water and said they loved remote learning. I’ve been absolutely amazed by how some of our staff have engaged with the technology, even those who may have considered themselves technophobes. I think part of it has been the support system around them, between Hable, our in-house digital champions and digital support team. We are learning from each other.”

As pupils return to the College, we now aim to deliver a sector leading blended-learning environment in which we will continue to harness the power of technology to enhance the classroom experience. Gavin is keen to keep up the momentum built from a successful digital launch. “Going ahead, we need to continue with this and build on what we’ve done, not just see it as something to get us through this period.”

You can read more about our partnership with Hable by clicking on the case study image below