St Mary's Grammar Magherafelt wins '˜ICT Excellence' award

The awards ceremony, held on Thursday December 8 at The Merchant Hotel in Belfast, celebrated Northern Ireland schools that are demonstrating innovation in their use of technology for teaching and learning.

The awards – established in 2015 – celebrate the innovative and collaborative use of technology in schools across Northern Ireland and the positive impact on students and their wider communities.

The winning school in the category ‘Transforming teaching and learning through technology’ was St Mary’s Grammar Magherafelt.

The judges were impressed by the school’s use of technology to enable their students to direct their own learning, embed technology into the lesson plan process and support innovative approaches such as the ‘flipped classroom’.

The judging panel also highlighted the fact that St Mary’s Grammar School’s approach successfully prepared the school’s students for the next step of University or employment.

Deirdre Gillespie, principal of St Mary’s Grammar Magherafelt, said: “This award is a real testament to the hard work of the team at St Mary’s. We have always intended to use technology to enable independent, personalised and self-initiated learning – and it’s made a tremendous difference to the experience and education we’re able to offer our pupils. This has been a huge effort from the entire school – so we’re proud to have that work recognised by Capita and C2k.”

The winner of each category will receive a prize fund of £3,000 to spend on ICT equipment from Capita.