Learn more about Streetly Academy

Streetly Academy in Sutton Coldfield had three challenges. First, they wanted to provide more equitable access to information and technology across their 1,400-strong student population. They also wanted to give their teachers more freedom to tailor their lessons to the individual needs of each pupil. Finally, they wanted to improve overall school performance by crafting a plan that involved a number of small and incremental changes that would result in school-wide change. Headteacher Billy Downie knew that technology would need to be part of the plan.

The existing handful of computer labs in existence were not enough to help drive system-wide change. Downie’s team surveyed what was available in the marketplace and honed in on G Suite for Education and Chromebooks to help them reach their goals. Through a variety of funding avenues the school began to roll out a 1:1 device model in Years 10-13. Teachers and students began to work collaboratively using G Suite for Education, a suite of productivity tools free for schools to use. The collaborative way of working within tools such as Classroom helped teachers to save time and to become more involved in each student’s work. Students were able to share their work at an earlier stage with their teacher, allowing teachers the opportunity to make suggestions to help improve performance before assignments were handed in.

‘This is about giving advice during the project–a big shift in teachers' mindset. There’s not much use for feedback after a student has completed a project–but feedback during the project is very useful’ - Andy Caffrey, Assistant Headteacher at the time. 

Now rated as an Ofsted Outstanding school, Streetly Academy is a shining example of strong vision at the leadership level, a robust set of goals and a multi-faceted plan to bring about real change–with real results.