About City Heights Academy
City Heights Academy is an exciting new E-ACT Academy designed to deliver 21st century education to local children and for the wider community in Lambeth. The new Academy has 900 places for pupils aged 11 to16 and a further 200 places for young people aged 16 to 18. Their ethos is to fulfil every child's desire and capacity for success and achievement through high quality teaching and services.
Background
Capita Managed IT Solutions (Capita) was appointed as the strategic ICT partner for the newly built City Heights Academy in 2014 and tasked with providing a brand new ICT infrastructure for the school. Capita worked closely with City Heights to understand their ICT needs and aspirations, then developed a tailor-made solution to meet their educational requirements.
The Challenge
As a newly built Academy, City Heights had a strong vision for their ICT infrastructure and how resources could deliver outstanding results for their pupils and teachers. A stable networking and server infrastructure was required to provide reliability and flexibility to support the work of the school and all those who use its facilities. The Academy also required a number of dedicated client devices for use within the school, as well as new interactive technologies to enable stronger interaction with pupils during lesson engagements.
The Solution
City Heights staff had been using Google Apps with great success and ease in their temporary building, therefore decided to install a fully integrated Google Solution in their new Academy.
They expanded the solution to include Google Active Directory Sync and Google Password Sync and procured over 300 Google Chromebooks which are deployed in the classrooms and managed via Google Apps for Education. These tools enabled the Academy to integrate and synchronise user, group and passwords from the schools Microsoft Active Directory.
The Google Teaching Platform provides a fast and efficient with single sign off for all apps which enabled efficient use of time in the classroom. Google Apps for Education provided excellent opportunities for learning and collaboration using Apps such as Khan Academy and Code Academy.
These new technologies have galvanised pupils from all abilities to embrace new learning opportunities in a fast, interactive and stimulating learning platform. Teachers can deliver an inspirational and interactive lesson, while giving timely feedback to pupils.
Google Solution was chosen not simply because of the value for money, but also because it intuitively fitted with the way young people and teachers use devices in their everyday life.
Benefits
- Reliable and flexible infrastructure and resources
- Opportunities for collaboration using Google Apps for Education
- Fast & efficient single sign on for all apps
- Interactive and stimulating learning platform
What the school said
"We developed an excellent working partnership with Capita throughout this project. The team took time to understand our ICT requirements and worked tirelessly to deliver a smooth transition for both pupils and teachers into the new world of 21st century technology. We now have access to the highest quality technology and programmes available, which enables our pupils access to any time, any place learning culture."
Further information
Visit: www.capita-mits.co.uk/events