Aylesbury High School
How we helped this school transform learning with Google Workspace for Education
Aylesbury High School is a Secondary and Sixth-Form school based in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
With around 1300 students, the school has been with us as a customer since 2016. Over their time with us, Aylesbury High has developed their use of Google’s education solutions to fully transform their teaching and learning environment.
When we first began working with Aylesbury High, the school was already actively using Google Classroom. The solution had already made things much simpler and easier for students and staff; connecting subjects by encouraging teachers to collaborate, streamlining communication between departments, and creating new ways for students to engage during class.
However, Aylesbury were on the lookout for a confident technology partner that could help them grow what they were doing with their Google learning environment, in the hopes of becoming a Google Reference School - recognised internationally for their outstanding use of technology to drive positive learning outcomes.
In order to achieve this, the school would need to embark on a journey to provide equal access to technology for their students by implementing a 1:1 device scheme.
The idea of a 1:1 scheme is simple: one secure, standardised device is provided for every student to help enhance their learning, both in school and at home, and parents contribute to the cost of their child’s device to aid the school. However, running a 1:1 scheme requires the right resources and support in order for the scheme to succeed.
Leading the adoption of Google’s solutions within the school was Aylesbury High’s Deputy Headteacher Caroline Wilkes. Having initially ran a successful pilot scheme by providing Chromebooks to around 60 students, Caroline wanted to expand the programme to cover the entire school. But she would need the right help and support to successfully achieve this.
Linking with Haptic was invaluable to us at AHS when we first decided to explore a 1:1 scheme at school. They gave us so much advice, right from the outset, and talked us through everything we needed to consider, from our network setup to the devices themselves.
They then helped us with our roll out, attending parent information evenings, advising us on the set up of Google Admin, coming into school to help us on day 1, and then even running workshops for our students in the couple of years that followed.
We would not have had nearly such a successful programme if it hadn't been for the support of Haptic.
"After approaching a few vendors for recommendations, the school took advice from ASUS to meet with our team, due to the strong relationship we’d built up with ASUS over the years.
Just like how we work with all of our customers, we were open and honest about the various technical considerations that come with launching a 1:1 scheme.
We consulted with the school’s IT team to ensure their network was ready to cope with the increase in security and performance demands that come with introducing a large number of new devices into their network. As well as this, we supported the school with ensuring they could effectively adopt Chromebooks by providing consultancy around device optimisation and management best practices.
In addition, we helped Aylesbury to take into account the social considerations of launching the scheme, engaging their parent community through interactive parents evening sessions to help them understand the true value that Chromebook devices could bring to enhancing their children’s learning.
Leaving no stone unturned, we even helped Caroline to coordinate the financial management aspect of parent payments by introducing the school to our financial services partner Edde.
When it came to deploying devices, Aylesbury High took advantage of our Switch-On Service, meaning that when their Chromebooks arrived in classes, they were pre-configured and ready to go straight out of the box. Our team was also present onsite to support on device rollout day, acting as a technical resource to ensure a smooth and successful launch.
Following this, we also handed over this knowledge when the school was comfortable and fully up and running with their 1:1 programme.
In the years that followed, in collaboration with ASUS we also helped the school to host Google Learning Festivals - aimed at students and schools that feed Aylesbury to help incoming pupils learn how to use Chromebooks.
