Category Archives: Apple Distinguished School

Apple Distinguished Schools Summit 2018

Back again for another year at the Apple Distinguished Schools Summit. This time down south and not on my own. Behind the scenes I have been very busy completing and tweaking the latest edition of the Bedford Girls’ School Apple Distinguished School story in Apple Book format. We were very pleased to be confirmed as an Apple Distinguished School for 2018-2021 (three years this time!) and came away with a shiny framed certificate and new banner.

It was great to catch up with friends new and old from other Apple Distinguished Schools, particularly our friends from Alderley Edge School for Girls who had visited us not so long ago to inform their own application to become an Apple Distinguished School.

BGS Book Updates

Here are a selection of book updates made for Bedford Girls’ School. I tweet these out from @BGS_DigitalC

Internal Book Updates Galore

Not all the Bedford Girls’ School books we create are suitable for external publication. This is mostly due to referencing internal docs, the fact they support iTunes U courses and because they are designed specifically for a need within school. We are trying to publish more for external use, but it often requires a lot more planning and consideration to write for a broader audience. Here are a selection of insights into some of the non-public books at BGS. If you are intrigued by one, do get in touch.

Hosting International Apple Education Visitors

This is our second year of being an Apple Distinguished School and our second week of hosting international visitors over here to visit the BETT show and visit other schools like us.

This year we hosted visitors from France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Hong Kong. We were delighted to share our 1:1 journey, including how we use iTunes U and multi-touch books. The girls enjoyed having visitors in their lessons and were excellent at holding conversation and sharing what they got up to. They are great ambassadors and it was lovely to hear what they thought (they were allowed to tell the truth, warts and all!)

Read more from school here.

See photo gallery here. 

#HTINSET

Our school is part of the Harpur Trust, and at the start of January we collaborated for one Trust-wide INSET day at Bedford School. James and I were asked to present a session about the 1:1 approach at BGS. We chose to present about iTunes U and multi-touch books as our specialisms, but we needed to pitch it to teachers who were not in 1:1 environments (yet, maybe!) so looked wider to how the approaches could be used towards VLE, ePub, Chrome Books etc. to help our audience.

We had a packed room on the day, and I hope that what we shared helped our colleagues in the Trust consider how technology can improve teaching and learning for them and their students.

Sharing our Apple Story

It’s been a fantastic couple of days at Bedford Girls’ School. As an Apple Distinguished School we were proud to host over 100 educators from Finland, Poland, Denmark and Greenland. The delegates had come over to the UK to visit BETT 2017, and also visit other schools who use Apple technology to improve teaching and learning.

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As part of the visit we gave some short presentations on our iPad story, as well as how we use iTunes U and iBooks to support learning. I was nervous but excited to explain my part of the strategy as Digital Design Creator.

The highlight of each of the visits was the opportunity to take a group on a learning walk, which is a tour of classrooms. The timetable for lessons remained unchanged and the visitors were joining ordinary lessons across a range of year groups and subjects.

Jo MacKenzie, our Head, also wrote about the visits. The girls were really excited to share what they got up to, and how iPads changed their education.

Not only did we all learn a lot about how other schools approach technology and learning, but we swapped ideas and discovered how anything from the school day structure to how marking and feedback is handled differs.

BGS Apple Distinguished School Story

Following Bedford Girls’ School’s approval as an Apple Distinguished School in late 2016, we published our story to the iTunes Bookstore.

The application process for an Apple Distinguished School is to complete an iBook covering 5 particular areas, using a particular template base. Once an ADS, you are invited to publish the book (subject to extra approval and vetting from Apple for use of product images, logos, etc.) to allow others to read.

You can download the Bedford Girls’ School book here.

Sharing Our iPad Story with Local Schools

In conjunction with Apple Education, we welcomed some guests from schools from our county and neighbouring counties today, to share our iPad story.

We explained how we used the iPads, iTunes U and iBooks amongst many other tools to enrich learning, and took our guests on a tour of some lessons.

Some of our guests had sets of iPads, others were considering Microsoft, but we all had common ground in the challenges we face.