Hurst’s Student Digital Learning Team (SDLT) are a group of seven, whose primary focus is to digitally upskill and support pupils with enquiries. The SDLT have produced training resources aimed at supporting primary school pupils with the intention to visit local schools and offer digital workshops.
Last Tuesday, the SDLT visited Pennthorpe Prep School in Rudgwick, to deliver a one-hour IT support workshop for a group of Year 7 pupils. The session focussed on preparing the pupils for their next senior school. Members of the team spoke about email etiquette, structuring an email and the appropriate formalities that will be expected of the pupils as they move up to their senior school. Next, the students looked at an excel spreadsheet, exploring how to insert data, embed basic formulae functions in cells, and sort columns accordingly. The final session looked at Windows OneDrive, emphasising the importance of organising documents and folders methodically, saving work so that it is easily located and experimenting with various formatting functions in Microsoft Word.
The sessions were engaging, with pupils following guided tasks on their own devices to explore new applications such as Excel. The Pennthorpe pupils varied in proficiency, but they all came away with a new skill and the experience was equally as rewarding for Hurst students.
The team will continue to adapt their training material in preparation for a visit to Dorset House Prep School later in the term. They will also be looking at in-house training sessions for Hurst’s Year 6 pupils and seeking ways to support pupils throughout the year groups in maximising their use of school devices.
Find out more about Digital Learning at Hurst College
Read more about Digital Learning in UK schools
