ECS Once again Top of Class for home learning

Exeter Cathedral School has once again scored top marks for their innovative approach to home learning. The School’s sector-leading approach has been recognised by Microsoft and has been featured as a blog on how to deliver a balanced home learning programme as part of the Microsoft Education Industry Leaders series.

The oldest school in Exeter pioneered a 21^st Century solution to schooling during the first lockdown at Easter last year, to offer bespoke academic and pastoral provision to all of its pupils. And with the announcement of the new lockdown in January, the School quickly offered a further-improved model to offer live teaching of its full curriculum to all pupils.

The School – known in the county for its strength in the creative arts and for its family feel – has worked with Microsoft Teams and leading local experts IT Champion to create a bespoke Remote Learning Platform that is meaningful, manageable, creative and fully interactive.

Mr Andy Bartlett, Senior Deputy Head, has led the programme from concept to reality and continues to develop the School’s inventive approach to blended learning in the 21^st Century: “We’ve worked with pupils, parents and staff to create a balanced and interactive programme that maintains our rigorous approach to learning and teaching at the same time as offering flexibility.”

Leading the Way!

ECS:Learning2021 means that girls and boys at the city-centre day and boarding school receive live face-to-face contact with their teachers throughout the day, live-taught and video-cast lessons spanning the whole curriculum, and that they have a teacher on-hand for instant guidance and feedback every lesson. Physical wellbeing challenges, form time, assemblies, music and art lessons, lunchtime clubs and even the School’s famous chorister programme are also all on offer despite the lockdown.

The School, which has seen a surge of new pupils over the last year and achieved the top grading of ‘Excellent’ in all areas during its most recent Inspection, is delighted with the success of its digital platform, rolled out to serve the needs of all pupils from 3 to 13. Parents have described the programme as “incredible”, “world-class remote learning” that is “slick and smooth” – as well as wishing us luck to “manage all of us parents!”.

“We’re really proud to be leading the way with a set-up that we think is really sensational” says Headmaster, Mr James Featherstone, “we are an Ancient Foundation with Traditional Values and a Modern Approach: our digital platform maintains our traditions that have been alive at our school since 1179”.

Exeter Cathedral School was founded in the 12th century as a choir school and nowadays educates some 275 boys and girls between the ages of 3 and 13. Admissions enquiries for in-year places and for September 2021 are welcome and further details about the School and their remote learning programme can be found at www.exetercathedralschool.co.uk.