One of the first tasks I undertook as the Director of Innovation at RGS Worcester was to ensure our institution retained ‘Apple Distinguished’ status; a mission that provided both challenge and opportunity. However, I am pleased to confirm that RGS Springfield, RGS Dodderhill, RGS The Grange and RGS Worcester all received the much-coveted accolade for our innovative and meaningful approach to teaching and learning through the implementation of Apple Technology.

Apple Distinguished Schools are ‘centres of leadership and educational excellence’ that have embedded Apple technology deeply within their teaching and learning culture. For example, we regularly hold Regional Training Centre events that offer high quality and free CPD to educators locally and nationally. Indeed, between now and the end of the academic year there are four events planned ranging from using the app GarageBand to an inter-school robotic golf competition! If you would like to come along to one of our RTC events then please follow us on EventBrite and sign up to an event that interests you.

Apple Distinguished Schools are beacons of educational excellence and we regularly enjoy hosting educators, schools or any interested party who wants to see outstanding digital deployment in action. Just this month we invited PGCE students from the University of Worcester to come along and see what our Digital Learning Programme (DLP) is, how it works and why it benefits both teaching and learning. Furthermore, we are looking forward to welcoming senior leaders from schools in our region next month to demonstrate aspects of our DLP.

Moreover, they are a network of some of the most innovative schools on the planet. Every year we have the opportunity to meet with other Apple Distinguished Schools at the annual ADS innovation summit. Last summer I was fortunate enough to go to Berlin and hear some incredible ADS stories and bring back some great teaching and leadership ideas to RGSW.

Myself and Head of Computing at RGS The Grange, Matt Warne also attended the ADS conference in London in November 2019. It was another opportunity to hear from other ADS Schools based in the UK and Ireland and share ideas, strategies and concepts. We also received official confirmation of our continued ADS status until 2022.

So, how do you become an Apple Distinguished School? To obtain recognition, each school must have successfully embedded Apple products into everyday school life to inspire creativity, collaboration and critical thinking. Furthermore, they need to showcase the impact that innovative uses of technology have had upon learning, teaching and the school environment. Moreover, you need to have met the following criteria:

• Established one-to-one programme
• Innovative use of the Apple platform
• Staff proficiency with iPad or Mac
• Documented results

However, there’s also the small challenge of collating evidence of all this in a digital book that is sent to Apple HQ for approval…The process of compiling and writing our ADS book provided me with a unique opportunity, as a new member of staff, to learn about RGSW and its Digital Learning Programme.

You can view and download the Royal Grammar School ADS Book by following this link

• The first chapter is an overview of our four schools; The Senior School, RGS The Grange, RGS Springfield and RGS Dodderhill and afforded the possibility to learn about the unique cultures that each school enjoys but also understand the commonalities that bind them together.
• Chapter two focuses on the RGSW vision for using digital technology. It gave me the chance to speak to the four Head teachers across our four schools to hear how they saw the continued progression of our DLP as a fundamental aspect of the school’s development strategy. This chapter also gave me a chance to explore the role of ‘key stakeholders’ and how they underpin the innovative culture RGSW is famous for and to explore how the DLP helps RGSW to become a more sustainable environment.
• The third chapter examines learning and how the DLP encourages teamwork, collaboration and creativity. It includes movies, pictures, examples of work and interviews with teacher who explain how the personalisation of work and critical thinking are facilitated by our use of digital technology.
• The focus of chapter four is teaching and how across our four schools, high quality continuous professional development for our teachers is integral to the success of the DLP. It explains how we have used evidence-based practice, and tools such as the Apple Teacher Programme to develop teacher skills, knowledge and confidence to use their MacBook, iPad and Apple Pencil.
• The Environment is the topic of chapter 5, and describes how our holistic infrastructure enables learning to take place anywhere, anytime. Across our four RGSW Schools, we are incredibly fortunate to have a wide selection of environments that encourage creativity, collaboration and independent learning to flourish.
• Finally, chapter six examines results. Measuring outcomes are vital to ensure RGSW achieves our goals and fulfils our vision. In this chapter we show the results of in-house research that evidences the difference digital learning has made to teaching and learning.

In conclusion, the selection of the RGS Worcester family of schools as Apple Distinguished highlights our respective successes as innovative and compelling learning environments. It is a badge of honour that all our staff members should wear with a huge amount of pride.  It is ultimately their dedication to continually engage and motivate our students, create incredible learning journeys and challenge themselves to continually improve and reflect upon their own pedagogy that has helped us to be recognised as a distinguished school.