We are delighted to be included in this year’s prestigious Edtech 50 Awards 2021-22, which celebrate the innovative people and organisations that are enhancing teaching and learning in schools across the UK.
Westbourne has been applauded for using the pandemic as an opportunity to explore new ways of teaching, new resources and cutting-edge technologies to support pupils, including the launch of Westbourne Online and our implementation of Google Classroom during lockdown, which ensured 100% live lesson coverage in a single week.
The appointment of a Director of Online Education at Westbourne meant that the school was in a unique position to move seamlessly to a full online offering from Day 1 of the nationwide school closures. An additional factor in our students’ success has been personalisation, with teaching at Westbourne heavily tailored to the individual. With older students (Year 3 – Sixth Form) receiving personalised academic support through Google Classroom and younger pupils (Nursery – Year 2) through Seesaw, the school was able to provide intensive online learning for all ages. This included classroom teaching, group learning, and even a full timetable of wellbeing activities ranging from mindfulness, sport, and forest and beach school.
An innovative tech partnership enabled us to deliver a groundbreaking online learning platform backed by artificial intelligence and the latest thinking in neuroscience. Westbourne was one of the first schools in Wales to use use AI to enhance learning, giving our students greater control over their studies and the ability to tailor their learning to fit their personal interests and passions.
The platform generates mini-lessons that students use to complement their studies in class, with full teacher support. If a student requires guidance in a particular academic area, the platform recognises this and recommends mini-lessons to improve understanding. It can also do this in a cross-curricular sense, for example suggesting English mini-lessons if a student’s misunderstanding of a Maths problem is based on a comprehension error. It also recognises when a student needs to be challenged, recommending limitless supplementary material in the core areas of English, Maths and Science.
