Waikaretu School celebrates edtech success

Waikaretu School on the west coast of the North Island has beat off competition from Trans-Tasman schools to become one of the 17 successful winners of the Promethean Grant 2018.

With entries from both Australia and New Zealand, Waikaretu School impressed the panel of judges and won a state-of-the-art education technology package worth $6000.

To participate in the Promethean Grant, schools were encouraged to submit a video entry to explain why they would benefit from winning an ActivPanel. Judged on three criteria, pupils had to display creativity, explain their need for the technology and the impact that it would have on their school if they were successful.

A total of five New Zealand schools have been chosen out of over 60 entries. The other winning schools were St Albans Catholic School in Christchurch, Putaruru College and Auckland’s Mangere Bridge and Northcote Baptist Community Preschool.

Global education technology provider launched the Promethean Grant in Australia and New Zealand in 2017. Following the success of the 2017 Grant, Promethean recognised an opportunity to offer schools a chance to once again get their hands on the technology, despite facing increasing budgetary pressures.

In their video entry, which you can see above, Waikaretu School talked about how the small school had recently been split into two classrooms – leaving one group of students without access to interactive technology.

Ron Baptist, head teacher at Waikaretu School said: “We are thrilled! We are often overlooked as a small rural school so when our fundraising board member passed details of the competition on to me, I thought that it was worth going for.

“I’m really proud of the students for their collaborations, their ideas and for presenting our story.”

Alistair Hayward, Head of UKI and ANZ Markets at Promethean, commented: “Schools are facing increasing financial pressures and at the same time are expected to create and maintain successful learning environments. We are incredibly passionate about education and believe that all schools should be able to access the latest technology to enhance learning and teaching experiences. We saw an opportunity to help schools receive these Edtech packages whilst encouraging them to embrace their creativity.”

Waikaretu School’s ActivPanel was installed in early November. The ActivPanel acts as an immersive and collaborative learning centre, which will help teachers and pupils alike with their lessons. With the ability to connect with other learning devices, such as laptops and tablets, pupils will be able to share their work with the class and peer-assess, alongside being able to utilise the multi-touch functionality for small groups. Promethean is looking forward to developing a partnership with the winning school to help them get the most out of the technology.