We recently caught up with the team at Caludon Castle School, part of the Castle Phoenix Trust, to talk about all things Apple and TrilbyTV. Neil Emery, Director at TrilbyTV, met with Victoria McManus, Deputy Headteacher; Ollie Riding, Ambition Lead for Creative Learning and Maths Lead; and Myke Grimes, IT Support and Graphic Design, to find out more about their journey. Starting over a decade ago, it’s an exciting story of true digital transformation in a forward-thinking school.
A vision for the future
Caludon Castle School started to consider Apple as a key part of their educational technology ecosystem after Michelle Marr, CEO at Castle Phoenix Trust and Headteacher at Caludon at the time, visited Cupertino to see Apple’s provision for schools. She saw the possibilities Apple could offer the school and began to think about a vision for improving Caludon’s teaching and learning technology.
At around the same time, the current Promeathen Active Boards used in classrooms were coming to the end of their life and their responsiveness was limited. The school decided to trial using iPads with a few members of staff who could mirror to the current Active Boards, helping to overcome issues with responsiveness. As they trialled this process Vic said “we thought well actually this has got some power,” leading them to consider growing the project across the school. KRCS Group have been supporting Caludon Castle school since 2003 and the Trust as a whole more recently, as their Apple Premium Education Partner.
A considered approach to new technology
Over the next 12 to 18 months, the Caludon expanded the use of iPads for content delivery into different faculties, starting with those that were most enthusiastic about the project. At that time, they were also moving from Teams to One Drive, so it was important that these changes were made at a manageable pace and staff were comfortable with the transitions. Vic explained, “we had a professional learning structure that sat behind it to make sure that staff were confident.”
Once all teaching staff were delivering their lessons from an iPad, they started to replace the existing Promethean boards with Apple TVs, which were more user friendly and provided clearer visuals.
Once teachers were on board, Vic told us, “we realised that there was an opportunity for some of our post 16 students to be involved. That’s where the first launch of one-to-one devices came from,” which was later rolled out for all students. The school uses a parental contribution model which means that, “the students are prepared with a device for all their next steps,” Vic explained.
Departmental ownership of technology
Vic believes what makes Caludon stand out is their faculty leadership model:
“At Caludon, we have a faculty leadership model that is distributed leadership. So faculties have the opportunity, sitting under the school improvement plan, to focus on an area, or areas, of development each year that are pertinent to them. […] Our faculties have strength in knowing what is right for them with the use of digital technologies.”
This model meant that faculties could go at their own pace and manage the new technology in a way that worked for their subject. Vic gave the example of Languages, who were one of the last adopters because they wanted to make sure they could deliver listening lessons to the standard they were used to. She told us,
“There was the opportunity for dialogue about how we can manage those things, how we can move resources to support. So it was done in a way that allowed barriers to be identified before we implemented things to hopefully negate them as much as possible. Because that’s how you’re going to get that success.”
Ollie went on to explain that they don’t enforce the use of iPads and Apple TVs in every lesson because the approach has to be right for the students: “that’s not the model we want to go for, we want this to be a genuine tool to enhance student learning.”
Supporting staff and students through change
As well as making sure the pace of change was manageable and implementation was right for each faculty, it was important that support was available throughout. Myke emphasised that, “we’ve had to evolve ourselves in IT support. It’s been so important for us to be really reactive and supportive.”
The IT Team now feel much more visible in school life because they are on hand to help in the classroom if a technical issue comes up so that teachers can carry on with the lesson. Vic feels the same: “those things are really supportive of the teaching staff. It means that people are more keen to try things that are outside their comfort zone, to explore.”
After the 18 month roll out, the school enforced a move away from PCs and asked all staff to only use iPads and Apple TVs. A testament to the effectiveness of the implementation across the school is that Myke said he “didn’t see one issue because essentially nothing really changed. They just had their PowerPoint in their hands rather than on the computer.”
A clear impact on student outcomes
The most important measure of success is the impact the technology has had on teaching and learning. With all students equipped with an iPad, there are many ways to differentiate learning and make lessons more accessible in a way that wouldn’t be possible with traditional methods. Vic explained,
“It’s an equitable curriculum offer to all students. Just the fact that they’ve got it on a device in front of them and they don’t have to keep looking at the board, or it can be a subtle colored filter, or it can be talk-to-text, lots of different things.”
Ollie agreed, telling us about the impact that working digitally had on SEN students during a trial with a Year 7 Maths group:
“The data for our students with special educational needs was now in line with students without special educational needs in that [group]. In the others, it was much lower. That’s the sort of thing that piqued my interest in it. This has clearly made a difference to some of our most disadvantaged and most vulnerable students. We’ve made a real noticeable difference and that’s our foundation to build upon.”
As well as making learning more inclusive, digital tools open up learning methods that wouldn’t be available otherwise. Vic told us about Art lessons at the school:
“There are students that have achieved two or three grades higher than they would have without the opportunity to use digital art. They had opportunities to use different skills than perhaps a traditional artist. They found pride within it as well.”
The need for effective communication
Through the implementation of Apple technology in classrooms, Caludon have transformed their approach to teaching and learning. One area that they still wanted to improve was communication across the school more broadly.
With interconnected technology already in place, Myke was able to share messages to groups of staff and students via iPad wallpapers managed through Jamf multi device management. He also updated signage on Apple TVs in reception by signing into an iCloud account and playing a slideshow. However, it was time-consuming to update, relatively inflexible in terms of the kinds of content that could be shared, and the responsibility fell solely on him because of the technical and design knowledge required.
Myke and his team recognised a need for an easier solution to manage communication with staff, students and visitors. Allowing them to share practical messages, make students feel involved in the community and showcase the school identity. As more people across the school started to ask for a solution for sharing and celebrating, Myke felt that it was the right time to look into TrilbyTV.
Two things in particular appealed to Caludon about TrilbyTV. Firstly, it’s a platform made for education: “That’s why it was so appealing, because it was made for schools,” Myke confirmed.
Secondly, the software is compatible with their Apple TV and Jamf setup, with the TrilbyTV team even having a dedicated full time TVOS developer. Myke told us how easy it was to set up TrilbyTV on their 90 Apple TVs across the school, “All I did was push the app out, put it in single app mode, and put a little bit of code in. And it started straight away. It was instant.”
Classroom sharing with digital signage
As well as using TrilbyTV on the screens in their receptions and canteens, Caludon have been innovative by also turning their classroom screens into digital signage when they’re not being used for teaching. Before TrilbyTV, the Apple TVs played aerial scenes between lessons, while visually appealing, were unrelated to school life and felt like a missed opportunity to share relevant content. Now, classroom screens are used to celebrate and communicate key messages while the teacher can instantaneously switch to their lesson content when needed with Jamf’s single app mode.
Signage in classrooms has required careful content moderation to strike a balance between engagement and reducing distractions. Myke and Vic review content for TrilbyTV to make sure it’s high-quality and appropriate for the setting. They also feel it’s important not to overload students with new information, given the amount they already take in on a day-to-day basis. Vic explained,
“I think not changing all of it all of the time is really important. Then when something new comes up the students think “that’s interesting I’ll have a look” but it’s not constantly another lot of new information.”
Building community through digital signage
“One of the things Sarah has implemented while she’s been Head here is a focus on the opportunity to praise, share and celebrate for both staff and students,” Vic told us. Their Apple and TrilbyTV set up works together seamlessly to facilitate this. In individual groups of staff or students, they can easily mirror iPad content onto the Apple TVs to showcase exemplary work to support a lesson or conversation. At whole school level, it’s simple for staff to send Myke content from their iPads which he can add to TrilbyTV and push out on screens around the site:
“Now people will send me a poster and I don’t even have to ask if I can have it in a particular format. They’ll send me an A4 poster in portrait and I’ll just add it and then match the color background to the color scheme and that’s it. I don’t have to do anything.”
As well as sharing work, the school uses TrilbyTV’s Smart Content to engage students in their house system. Myke told us that it’s easier and more eye-catching than just showing the number of points,
“It really aided the house system. The background changes color for which house is in the lead, the crest is on there visibly, and then you can see who’s the winner’s going to be as the points go up.”
Ollie added, “I just think it looks really professional. In terms of having pride in your school and pride in your profession, not many schools would have this. Our students really value it when they see their friends and themselves up there. It links back to that idea of belonging and feeling like “I am part of Caludon Castle and I’m represented here”.”
In the future, Caludon would like to develop the celebratory use of digital signage and delegate content ideas and creation more across their faculties. Myke mentioned that each has a star of the week, which could be shared via the screens and Vic confirmed that they’d like to grow the number of staff who contribute content and get involved, “making sure that staff are aware that they can do that. And then it doesn’t have to come from leaders, it can come from staff at all levels.”
Ollie summed up the attitude to new technology at Caludon, saying, “I think every year you go around Caludon you see more and more genuinely creative and unique things that are being done to push student learning on without it seeming like a gimmick.”
We can’t wait to see what they achieve next year with even more opportunities to communicate, share and celebrate through the combination of Apple technology and TrilbyTV. If you’d like to find out more about digital signage made for education, why not book a free demo with us. You can even try out TrilbyTV by signing up for a 30-day free trial to see how it works for your school or trust.