Maadi British International School - Building a Community

Located in Cairo, Egypt, students, teachers and parents at the Maadi British International School have been exploring the possibilities of increasing ICT in their teaching and learning, with exciting results. Awarded the ICT Mark by Becta in January 2009, MBIS show how introducing a Managed Learning Environment such as Fronter, is helping to meet the educational needs of the children and connect the wider school community.

Using ICT in schools is creating the workforce of the future and it's important that our children are prepared for jobs that have not yet even been dreamed of!

 Gary Brand, ICT Coordinator, Maadi British International School

Overview
Maadi British International School (MBIS) is a primary school located in Cairo, Egypt with approximately 400 children coming from over 40 different nationalities. The children range from age 3 to 11 and all but the year 1 students have received Fronter usernames and passwords to log into their virtual school building. Students, teachers and parents use Fronter to keep in touch with all the members of their school community.

Maadi School provides a rich, varied and relevant curriculum to all its pupils within a first-class, enabling and well-resourced building. The head teacher, senior staff and other colleagues place teaching and learning at the heart of the school's work, and have established effective procedures to ensure its high quality and continued development

 External School Evaluation Feb 2008

THE FRONTER SCHOOL COMMUNITY AT MBIS

Learners
Learners log into Fronter and have access to certain rooms depending on their age, class and level. Some of the rooms that they can access are:
The School Picture Room where there are photos posted of all the school's main events.
Virtual classrooms where they can find information about lessons or download assignments

Parents
All parents now use Fronter to access school information, newsletters and download relevant information e.g. application forms.

Teachers
The teachers have a private Teachers' Room where important information is shared. Access to this room is customised so that information is kept confidential and not available to parents and students

Focus Year 2
Learners are introduced to Fronter during Year 2, and are shown how they can use the MLE both at home and at school. They are shown around their Maths room where they can click on links to different Maths websites and practise their mathematics skills. Each child can easily choose a site that fits his / her level of competence.

The learners are also shown around the ICT room, where they follow a learning path on how to create their own virtual business. Slowly the students discover how Fronter can link them to different websites available on the internet, lead them through different tasks, and communicate with their classmates through stickies and messages. All the students are encouraged to log into Fronter at home and show their parents what they have been doing at school.

Children at this young age are able to easily navigate the different facilities that are provided by an MLE like Fronter. They can communicate with each other, gain access to Internet sites as prescribed by the class teachers, and send stickies to teachers or friends. They can also log into Fronter from home to download class assignments and, with their parents, can keep up to date with current and upcoming events throughout the school community

 Gary Brand, ICT Coordinator

Special Projects - Cairo to Cape Town
The Maadi British International School is involved in a new project called Cairo to Cape Town. The aim of Cairo to Cape Town is to look at how the international school is engaging with its local community, and to develop strategies for successful partnerships. 2 teachers from the school will drive from Cairo to Cape Town visiting 10 International Schools and local community groups.

The progress of the teacher's trip will be mapped and communicated through a page in their virtual school building. The project aims to promote an awareness of the global community among the students and what it means to interact with your fellow global citizens from different countries and communities

MBIS is the first international school in the world to have been awarded the ICT Mark. Inspectors from Becta evaluated the use and impact of ICT within MBIS, awarding the prestigious mark on the 15th January 2009.

'There is an exciting and vibrant feel to the school where all staff and children feel valued. The school has a clear vision for the use of ICT which has been formulated through discussions between all the key stakeholders within the school community

ICT is used to improve communication with parents and the school is carefully developing its Learning Platform to produce a tool which truly meets their needs.'

Eamonn Horton, Inspector, Becta

'I think that being awarded the ICT Mark is an important step in showing the community that MBIS is an ICT mature school and now we will be striving to gain a BECTA ICT Excellence Award. Through our Self Review Framework we have been able to establish that Fronter has been a most helpful tool in setting up great communication with parents, defining homework easily, teaching e-safety simply and effectively and getting children excited about logging on with their own personal username and password. Using ICT in schools is creating the workforce of the future and it's important that our children are prepared for jobs that have not yet even been dreamed of!'

 Gary Brand ICT Coordinator Maadi British International School