MALTON School has been redesignated as an Apple Distinguished School.

Nine years after launching its iPad scheme, and having been recognised as an Apple Distinguished School for the period 2021-2024, the school has once again been rewarded for the high quality of its ongoing work as an Apple Distinguished School with redesignation for the 2024-2027 programme term.

Schools apply, and are selected, for this distinction based on their commitment to continuous innovation in education and using Apple products to inspire, imagine and impact teaching and learning.

Apple Distinguished Schools are centres of leadership and educational excellence, with a clear vision for how technology-rich environments support learning goals. In Apple Distinguished Schools, forward-thinking leaders and their communities work to inspire, imagine and impact teaching and learning, and they have documented results of academic accomplishments.

The Apple Distinguished School recognition for Malton School for the period 2024-2027 focuses on four key areas:

• A culture of wellness, wonder and community fostered particularly through the use of Smoothwall Pulse, which enables students, on a weekly basis, to provide feedback to staff on their own emotional wellbeing.

• Teachers inspiring a love of learning that leverages technology to empower students and reimagine learning. Examples include the creation of digital learning journals for students who went on the Battlefields Trip to France and Belgium; use by GCSE and A level Geography students to research and plan data collection techniques; taking full advantage of technology to enhance learning in university style lectures for A level social science students.

• Engaging in formative and reflective practices to evaluate progress and drive continuous improvement. Students and members of the PE Department are currently working with Leeds Beckett University and the Youth Sport Trust to harness technology to help improve not only performance but everyday health and fitness in teenage girls.

• Sharing the school’s success to inform and inspire others in the education community.

Helen Wilson, Assistant Headteacher for Teaching and Learning has taken a lead role in developing and extending the use of iPad technology throughout school.

She said: "Classroom practice has changed completely. The use of iPad technology means students can combine a textbook and exercise book into one piece of equipment which they can annotate, highlight and add additional material to. This also gives students a greater degree of autonomy and independence in their learning by empowering them to decide whether to work digitally or use a hybrid system.”

Headteacher Rob Williams, said: “The use of iPad technology at Malton School means we are equipping all our students to live in the modern world. Whether they leave us and go on to study at university or enter the world of work they will have the knowledge and skills to adapt to change and the automation of so many tasks. But more importantly, that opportunity is available to all our students, giving everyone equality of opportunity.”

Malton School currently has over 1,000 students on roll, all with iPads.