Nestled in the heart of London, alongside the Houses of Parliament, lies a school built in the 12th century that continues not only to educate, but also to inspire students today.
Westminster School’s rich history helps to make it sought-after among aspiring parents, with paths that could lead to post-secondary institutions such as Oxford and Yale.
Although academic success is a key benchmark for the school, its director of digital strategy, Richard Hindley, is quick to note that Westminster wants to develop pupils more generally, too.
“We seek to educate our children in the round, so that they are well prepared for life in general,” he says. “Not just at university, but beyond that as well, and in all spheres. And not just in the academic sphere, but also personally and socially.”
Full technology integration
Westminster has been building towards full technology integration. With support from Hindley, more and more teachers are using tech in their classrooms. Plus, with the campus fully Wi-fi connected, students are encouraged to bring their own devices, which Hindley believes is important in preparing them for work and life in the 21st century.
When it was time to upgrade the projector-based classroom technology, shifting to 7000 series SMART Boards was a “no-brainer”, says Hindley. The Westminster teachers were already using SMART software and knew the benefits it brought to their classroom teaching, including the ability to easily annotate various types of content using SMART ink.
The built-in functionality of the 7000 boards has made it easy for teachers to integrate them into their classrooms, which are already impressively high-powered places. “I had the opportunity to sit in on a geography class at Westminster School - it was very different from any geography class I ever took in high school,” says SMART’s Katie Novak.
“I witnessed a classroom of 15-year-old boys richly debate their responses to the correlations between economic measures such as GDP and societal measures such as infant mortality rates in countries like Moldova.
“When the teacher revealed graphs on the SMART Board, many were surprised by how well they had predicted the factors measured, and often too by how far off their guesses had been. The discourse that was inspired during the lesson was nothing short of extraordinary, and to see the responses to the data as it was revealed on the board was inspiring.”
Looking to the future
Like other schools, Westminster is continually seeking ways to ensure that students are prepared for the world and workforce of the future. We’re pleased that SMART is a part of that…
