2009, Jan 16: Yewlands Technology College, Sheffield

Yewland Technology College is one of the schools under the Building Schools of the Future (BSF) programme, with its new campus opened in September 2008. It caters to students from age 11-16.

• Vision: Our Learning, Our World, Our Future
• There are 54 full time teaching staff & 48 support staff
• Pupils were involved in the selection of furniture in the new campus
• 1 day in a week is set aside as the "Project-based Learning" day, which is theme-based.
• Ratio of Teacher to Students for Project-based Learning is 1:6
• School is also moving into re-organising its curriculum such that related subjects are put together, in 4 major groups altogether.
• Students are organised by ability and developed/stretched differently.

Managing ICT in the school

• There are 2 onsite engineers/technicians to carry out maintenance and troubleshooting.
• The turnaround time for equipment is 30 min and there are spare computers available (~3%).
• There is also monthly report from the company that the service is outsourced to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some observations: Space and vibrance - the first impression when step into the campus.

• Space - Although the entire building is enclosed by concrete and glass, it is very spacious all over the place - the corridors are very wide because it's also doubled up as learning spaces. Someone said, there isn't any corridor in the building at all!
• Vibrance - It's the clever use of bright colours - Yellow, orange, green... and lots of white. Probably they belong to the corporate colours? Well, it also seems that the various locations are coded according to its purpose/discipline.

Computers are all over the place - wired PCs. Just wondering... it's not easy to manage - although there are technical support. Students' discipline counts! How does the school manage that? How about vandalism? I wonder... Ooops! I remember - we were told there's survillence cameras throughout the entire campus - to provide a safe environment - so... that also serves as a deterrant to vandalism, I guess.

I like the idea of using flexi-walls to create larger classrooms, of which classes can be combined for mass/inter-class activities. Given such a layout, we can

• promote collaboration among classes - inter-class projects
• conduct mass/special lectures/talks
• use the 'enlarged' area for exhibition
• use such big open spaces for the exam purposes - become mini-exam halls, saving manpower, too!
• ... ah! it's really up to our imagination...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~