Faringdon Community College

Overview

Faringdon Community College is part of the Faringdon Academy of Schools (FAoS), a small Multi-Academy Trust consisting of eight schools in total. The College delivers education to students aged between 11 and 18 in Faringdon, Oxfordshire.

Future-proofing learning environments

As Network Manager at Faringdon Academy of Schools, Chris Bennett started looking for state-of-the-art technology as part of a new, 22 classroom building opening its doors to pupils in September 2018. One of the immediate challenges was whether the new building would be equipped with a traditional projector and white-board set up or whether Faringdon would use this opportunity to upgrade to interactive displays.

"Part of the decision making process centred what we wanted our interactive technology solution to actually do for our student and teacher communities. We knew we wanted a solution that was completely reliable and would enhance teaching and learning in the classroom. Ease of use and choosing a platform that would grow with the increasing demands of the school was also a key consideration point."

After evaluating several interactive displays available on the market, Faringdon standardised on the Avocor E series, launched to the market at Bett 2018.

Chris explains; "Once we saw the Avocor display, we immediately felt that this was the solution for us. Not only was the quality of the display fantastic, but the Qwizdom OKTOPUS software that come as standard with the display was an absolute must for the school. The fact that OKTOPUS enabled teachers to open legacy, pre-created white-board content meant that teachers didn't have to re-create lessons in new software, saving time as a result."

Following the installation of the displays during the Summer 2018, the immediate feedback from students and staff alike has been extremely positive with image clarity and the intuitive software being the features that they have been most impressed with.

"Our students are delighted with the high-resolution, 4K visuals of the Avocor E series, meaning that every student can see the screen content clearly. Our teaching staff were also delighted with the interactivity of the display and how precise and accurate the glass makes annotations. They were also very impressed that the display doesn't require orientation, making a reduction in lesson downtime."

Although the school are just starting their journey with Avocor, they are hugely positive about how the displays will help to improve the learning environment for their students.

"We are really happy with the overall support we have had with Avocor to date, from the initial engagement through to deployment and post-sale, the team have been fantastic, ensuring that we have the very best experience with the Avocor solution. We are looking forward to embracing the solution as part of the school's journey to a more collaborative and exciting learning environment for our students."