St. Columbas

Building Strong Foundations First

St. Columbas was seeking ways to build on the momentum of skills learned during Covid-19 related school lockdowns, and remote learning. They wanted to embed Google Workspace and build ePortfolios for the students.

The Challenge

The staff have a variety of skill levels within Google Workspace, and like most primary schools they have limited time together as a whole-staff to build an in-depth awareness of the whole-school status. Once aware of skill levels and other related challenges, the school would need to build a dynamic, flexible programme to get staff and students to the required skill levels to be able to build ePortfolios with a consistent, whole-school approach.

The Solution

Olus Education worked with the leadership team in the school in a simply but effective three pronged approach.

1. Build the higher level planning and the general Google Workspace infrastructure required for their ambitions

2. Provide a dynamic whole-staff training programme with achievable milestones, commencing with a whole-staff training session with skills assessment and ongoing flexible professional development resources for individual staff members to develop specific skills.

3. Provide the students and staff with easy-to-use in-class resources to start building the basic skills required for building ePortfolios, then progressing to building ePortfolios as part of a rich Google Workspace-centric learning and teaching environment.

The Results

The staff made great progress during the initial phase of training and have commenced their individual programmes. This has established a strong foundation of skills and confidence, from which they are able to move toward building ePortfolios with a sense of ease and optimism.

Response from the School

“Breaking down a daunting task into achievable milestones with a flexible, understanding training approach has led to staff ‘getting onboard’ with this move toward ePortfolios. ePortfolios represent a real sense of confidence among staff when it comes to using technology effectively for planning, teaching and learning.

The support of Olus Education has been invaluable in not just bringing real 21st century education to our school, but bringing a sense of confidence that our school can become a beacon of digital learning that others will draw inspiration from.”

Criona Daly, Principal, St Columba’s NS Dublin

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