The Laidlaw Foundation sponsors eight academies in the North East of England, in Durham, Sunderland and in Newcastle, from the early years all the way up to Sixth Form:
- Academy 360, an all through school in Sunderland
- Atkinson Road Primary Academy, a primary school in Newcastle upon Tyne
- Excelsior Academy, an all through school in Newcastle upon Tyne
- Sedgefield Community College, a secondary school in Durham
- Sedgefield Hardwick Primary Academy, a primary school in Durham
- South Hylton Primary Academy, a primary school in Sunderland
- Thomas Walling Primary Academy, a primary school in Newcastle upon Tyne
- Westgate Hill Primary Academy, a primary school in Newcastle upon Tyne
Some of their academies serve the most disadvantaged communities in the North East of England. Executive Principal Sally Newton spoke to CENTURY about the Trust’s digital strategy.
We recognise that digital strategy is a means to an end, not the end itself. The ultimate goal of our digital strategy is to use edtech to improve outcomes, personal or academic, for all groups of learners.
Our supporting objectives underpinning this are to improve inclusivity and remove the barriers to learning, and to improve teacher productivity. We are very well aware of our duty to reduce teacher workload, and our digital strategy enables teachers to complete teaching tasks and administration more quickly, while having the greatest benefit on student outcomes. CENTURY reduces teacher workload when it comes to low level decision making activities.
Our digital strategy improves data-led decision-making across the Trust, using research and evidence to inform the decisions that we take. When we bring in new technology we ask if it improves outcomes, if we have robust evidence to give us confidence in what we are investing in, if it enables inclusivity, and if it allows teachers to be more productive.
With CENTURY we were able to answer all of those questions. This is a trust-wide initiative that actually allows a commonality, but also an autonomy. CENTURY allows us to be adaptive to individual contexts, and we don't have an expectation that CENTURY is used in exactly the same way in every academy. We trust our leaders and support them to implement the platform in the right way for their context, targeting the children and young people who need it the most. And that is the beauty of CENTURY because then we can draw trends across the trust about what is working well.
We support the holistic view of education and our cradle to career model, so that children are familiar with self-directing learning through CENTURY at a young age. They build fundamental lifelong independent learning skills, self-direction and self-motivation. CENTURY encapsulates and enhances that motivation, which is really rewarding to see across our academies.
Learn more about the Laidlaw Trust's Digital Road to Outstanding with our case study featuring Sedgefield Hardwick Primary School here.
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