Pupils can work at their own level, taste success, have it recorded and move on. But Julia Fuge, the project co-ordinator, says: “You cannot just leave the machine to do it on its own. The kids need you to notice they are doing well.”
All new children at the 1,000-pupil secondary have spent time on machines and early indications are that last year’s success will be more than repeated. Next year’s cohort will have had four back-to-back years of integrated learning.
Senior pupils are sampling the system, while a lunchtime club has about 40 members. Tom Robertson, the headteacher, believes this is only the start of computer-assisted learning and would like to extend the project to science, if more machines were available.