Barton Peveril Sixth Form College in Eastleigh has been nominated for the Covid-19 Response Champions - Schools and Colleges Award, in the Bett Awards 2021. The winner will be announced in an online ceremony on Friday 22nd January 2021.
The College was nominated for the award for its transition to online learning, a project headed by IT Manager Peter Horner. The project saw the College’s 4,000 students continue to attend each of their timetabled lessons from home in the first lockdown of the pandemic. This transition has been implemented once again in the current closure of the country’s educational institutions.
Bett Awards:
The Bett Awards are a celebration of the inspiring creativity and innovation that can be found throughout technology for education. The awards form an integral part of Bett each year, the world’s leading showcase of education technology solutions.
The Covid-19 Response Champions Awards recognise the companies and schools who have responded to the Covid-19 outbreak in a way that has positively impacted on the education, health and wellbeing of the student population during the pandemic.
Why Barton Peveril and Peter Horner were nominated:
Barton Peveril and its IT Manager were recognised in these awards because of the technology-enabled transition that allowed every single lesson for each of the College’s 4,000 students to continue uninterrupted. Students also had sustained access to all of the College’s support services (Counsellors, Student Progress Advisers, Nurse, and Careers Department) remotely.This continued provision is made possible through the College’s adoption of G Suite for Education.
Google Classroom is already used college-wide to empower students , support independent learning and deliver flipped classrooms. Through it, teachers communicate, post resources and pre-work, manage assignments, and mark and offer written or audio feedback. The library also offers 50 Google subject sites with 24/7 access to e-resources and academic social media and apps.
As part of his implementation of G Suite for Education, Horner has also become a Google Certified Innovator - a coveted title only given to 78 professionals throughout the world each year - to stay at the forefront of technological advancements in education.
Speaking on the nomination, Peter Horner said:
“It’s an honour to be nominated for this award. At the beginning of the pandemic my team and I just really wanted to ensure that we had the right strategies in place so that all of our teachers and learners had the necessary access to technology and digital skills training.”
Barton Peveril Principal, Jonathan Prest, said:
“We are overjoyed at Peter's success in being nominated for the Bett Award. Peter introduced Google Suite for Education at Barton Peveril after becoming a qualified Google level 2 Trainer, Google Educator and Google Innovator. He developed his own role to include staff training, rapidly increasing teachers' awareness of what learning software could achieve in and out of the classroom. Now, with the challenges of teaching through lockdown, all his hard work and vision has come together, helping the College to win EduFuturists College of the Year in 2020.
If ever there was anyone who reserved recognition for enhancing so many students' experience of learning from home, it is Peter Horner. Many congratulations to Peter, from his colleagues and on behalf of thousands of students studying at Barton who have directly or indirectly benefited from his vision and skills .”