School snapshot

• Special School for children aged 2 to 19 with severe and profound multiple learning difficulties
  
  
• Selected by the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) as a teaching school — Innovation Teaching School
  

​​​​​​​Challenge

The Ridgeway School (Farnham, Surrey, U.K.) is a Special School for children with severe and profound multiple learning difficulties. The school’s aim is to “provide a learning environment that is stimulating and challenging, yet supportive and enjoyable.” To further enhance their students’ learning and support their various needs, The Ridgeway School was looking for education technology equipment that could withstand heavy wear and tear or any potential damage. In addition, the school was really looking to replace out of date technology to make work easier for the teachers and Instructional Technology Team. The equipment they had in place was proving to be ineffective for the special needs of their students and were looking for a product with stronger capabilities and features.

Key Solutions

With the help of CI-Connect Ltd, representatives from The Ridgeway School were brought to Bett where they were shown a variety of interactive solutions. Mark Weston, Owner and Managing Director of CI-Connect, says, “The school was looking to upgrade their current screens which had been in place for a number of years and were no longer fit for (their) purpose.”

It was the Clevertouch® solution that caught their attention. They were impressed with the simple-to-use interface and functionality of the IMPACT Plus™ interactive touchscreen.

The easy access to the tools and applications would save teachers time and make learning experiences more efficient and focused. Two features were standouts:

• LYNX Whiteboard – a dynamic, easy-to use annotation and whiteboarding platform that engages users in real-time activities to enhance collaboration and improve the lesson presentation experience
• Snowflake – works with its online version to create an active learning system that helps to personalize learning and enables users to work in ‘zones’ to meet individual learning needs

The school also felt that the Clevertouch warranty was comprehensive, giving them confidence that should any issues or mishaps should occur, they would be well-taken care of.

“After seeing a demonstration of the Clevertouch display and ensuring it matched the requirement of the school, the Clevertouch option was chosen and deployed to 15 classrooms initially, with a view for additional interactive screens in the future as the school expands,” adds Weston.

Benefits

The school is incredibly pleased with the Clevertouch solution and feel the touchscreens have brought the latest technologies into their classrooms. This gives their teachers a brilliant presentation platform and the interactive software – LYNX and Snowflake – have proven to be invaluable, saving the IT Team time.

Julian Hitchin, IT Manager at The Ridgeway School, states, “The Clevertouch boards are an integrated solution of interactive screens and software which really helps the management of teaching as everything works together and there are no issues getting things to collaborate.”

Adds Weston, “The standout features were the learning software applications developed by Clevertouch and integrated with their displays. This provided real value for the school as well as the functionality that they required.

A special thank you to CI-Connect Ltd who facilitated the installation and set-up of the Clevertouch screens. Says Julian Hitchin, "The installation process with CI-Connect was excellent. They thoroughly checked everything beforehand and they were completely committed to making sure we were satisfied with the installation before finishing. They were professional, understanding, and dedicated to doing an excellent job. CI-Connect’s great service continues after the purchase and installation. They provide real and genuine high quality customer care."