Orere School’s Cloud Transformation with New Era

New Era and Orere College have embarked on a new journey with their Cloud Transformation

As New Era’s first primary school to move exclusively to cloud services, Orere Point is now a lighthouse school for the Cloud Transformation Project.

Over a term one break, the rural Auckland school’s ICT services were migrated to Microsoft Office 365 and Azure, and ageing school devices were replaced with new Windows 10 desktops and tablets, specified for classroom environments. After a term in the cloud, Principal Kerry Forse is excited about the progress. “We’ve been on the cloud for 10 weeks, and we’ve not had one issue. There’s been nothing. The internet has been stable, we’ve changed our Student Management System to a better system and we’re now using NZCER for assessment so the children are now doing online assessments.”

So has the cloud made a big difference for the students? “Yep, heaps.” Says Jese, a year 8 student from room one.

“The school is now able to use data from top end to bottom, to make decisions about what we’re doing. That’s lead to changing our goals across our school, our target students and looking at the types of assessment and learning we’re doing. All of that has come about by actually thinking about how we use the internet and the technology that we have available to us… It’s changed everything.”

– Kerry Forse, Principal, Orere School

New tools, new opportunities

Working locally on the old computers was frustrating. “It was very complicated. Before you had to go on the same computer to get that document. So you’d have to work in groups because all the work would be saved on that one computer.” Office 365 has opened up possibilities. “This is just all in the browser, you can access it from home. I could probably access it from the other side of the world if I wanted to. It’s way easier than before.”

Integrating e-Learning is balanced with a face-to-face approach. “My teacher said he didn’t want us to be like other schools where they don’t interact with the teacher so we try to keep an even balance between ‘computer life’ and interacting with the teacher.”

Data-driven decisions

Targeting students needs is a benefit of the new platform says, Kerry. “Now we can fine-tune what teachers are doing to specifically target the needs of the children. The school is now able to use data from top end to bottom, to make decisions about what we’re doing. That’s led to changing our goals across our school, our target students and looking at the types of assessment and learning we’re doing. All of that has come about by actually thinking about how we use the internet and the technology that we have available to us… It’s changed everything.”

Robotics, programming and further development of e-Learning are all on the horizon, but for now, the sky’s are looking clearer at Orere Point.

To find out more about Cloud Transformation for schools, contact our team.