Customer Stories
The Cornerstone Academy Trust is a small educational trust of four primary schools in the English county of Devon.
The trust seeks to create and promote a challenging learning environment that inspires children to achieve high standards and become life-long independent learners. By embracing technology as part of their everyday teaching, the schools take a new approach to digital tools, embedding their use within a broad and balanced curriculum.
Jonathan Bishop, CEO of The Cornerstone Academy Trust, tracks the trust’s partnership with Microsoft back twenty-five years, when it had technology in just one classroom. Today, the trust has 1:1 devices for all the children and uses Microsoft 365 as the underpinning technology on which the children’s learning environment is based.
James Beevor is a Year 6 teacher at the trust’s Westclyst Community Primary School in Exeter. He says, “The whole work suite has been really about being able to integrate everything together.”
Fellow Year 6 teacher, Bronnie Williams, agrees, saying: “It’s so intuitive to use. I also like how collaborative it is: we plan everything on OneNote and Teams.”
Teachers and children use Microsoft Surface devices throughout the different lessons during their school day. The Surface tablet’s mobile, lightweight design, its digital ink capabilities, and the ability to disconnect the keyboard and walk around the classroom are highly valued by staff.
“I love the fact that it’s a live whiteboard and the children have access to all the notes we’re making during our teaching input,” says Williams. “And the kids love them.”
The trust’s continuous digital innovation came to the fore as the effects of the coronavirus pandemic started to be felt. Having a strong and established digital platform facilitated a flexible response to lockdown measures, so that the children’s learning was not compromised.
Williams explains: “When we realised we were going into lockdown, we had a really good infrastructure in place so we were able to issue out the devices that we’ve got to the children. We could have that virtual delivery. We were having live lessons.”
Now that the children are back in the classroom, assemblies and lessons continue to be streamed on Microsoft Teams. Combining Microsoft Teams with Microsoft Surface devices brings a new agility to the classroom and makes for much more accessible and dynamic lessons. Williams enthuses: “I love the fact it’s a live whiteboard and the children who are also sitting there with their surfaces have live streams to them.”
“The ability to attend your remote lessons as well as physically be in them has fundamentally got to be the future,” Bishop says, “these are the tools of the professional to deliver education for the 21st century.”
Read more about how Microsoft is leading the way on using technology in schools.
“These are the tools of the professional to deliver education for the 21st century.”
Jonathan Bishop, CEO, The Cornerstone Academy Trust
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