JOHN HENRY NEWMAN CATHOLIC COLLEGE CASE STUDY Impact of the iPad

Louise Poole Head of Music

THE CHALLENGE: Why did you want to use the iPads? As a new Head of Department starting in September, I wanted to quickly develop and introduce a strategy to support peer assessment and evaluation of student work using levelled success criteria. I also wanted to establish an extension group to work after school with the focus of

MEETING THE CHALLENGE: What did you do? I wanted to record the work from one lesson and then as a plenary do whole-class assessment to identify WWWs/EBIs. The next lesson iPads would be shared out and swapped between groups to support assessment. Feedback would be given and then iPads would be returned to the original group for targeted improvement. For the extension group, students created an evaluation template in the form of a keynote and shared via dropbox for all lessons/groups to use. IMPACT: What difference has this made? There has been a dramatic improvement in engagement with more challenging students. As a tool for marking and assessing students work it has proven to be both versatile and essential for giving and recording spoken and written feedback. Having the iPad has enabled cross-departmental planning. I have been working with the English department to develop a RAP SoW.

Do you have any examples of specific students who benefitted from participating in this case study? Shannel, a year 9 student with particular learning needs, has really taken to using the iPads. She has been engaged when previously she had not wanted to complete tasks and thanks to being engaged and creating music, her current level in music improved from 4c to 6b.

Quotes endorsing impact There are plenty of student quotes in the video QR codes below for an in depth interview with myself and also some KS3 students about their work with iPads in music this term.

Why did it work? Students have been able to create music from a device that does not require musical skill to play. Students have been able to be creative and produce music that sounds great. More skillful musicians have been able to plug their instruments into the iPad to add a skill level and depth to the music that was not previously available . There are problems however. Being a personal device, iPads do have separate log in and so different students use the same iPad. This means that student work can be lost. Working with the technical support team, I have been able to remove completed tracks and one of them is available to listen to below.