National Award for Academy ICT
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THE city's Thomas Deacon Academy has won a national award for the way it encourages pupils to use computers.
In a ceremony held at Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium yesterday, the 2,200-pupil school, in Queen's Gardens, won the top prize in the "Best Use of ICT" category.
The inaugural awards were organised by the British Council for School Environments (BCSE) to mark best practice in UK design and construction of schools.
The Thomas Deacon Academy, designed by Foster and Partners, also received a highly commended award in the "Inspiring Design – Secondary School" category.
Today, the academy's director of colleges Barry Featherstone said: "It is a very proud achievement to have gained in only our first six months."
The academy uses Thin Client Citrix technology, which is typically found in universities, not schools.
It means pupils can log on to the academy's system at one of 1,000 stations dotted around the school buildings.
Mr Featherstone said: "Instead of having blocks of PCs, there are screens and work stations where pupils can log on. Staff and pupils can log on to the server from any of the stations and even from home.
"We also have a room of Apple Macs, which we call the multimedia research centre, where pupils have access to high level graphic displays allowing them to do their own publishing."
Director of BCSE Ty Goddard said: "The quality of entries led to some fierce debate among the judges and rightly so.
"But Thomas Deacon Academy shows that the right investment and approach can produce fantastic projects which we can be proud of and all learn from.
"This is particularly true in the ICT field, which is so crucial to our children's learning."
The award is a further boost to the £50 million academy, which was built to replace three secondaries – Deacon's School, John Mansfield School and Hereward Community College.
It is one of the largest schools in Europe and saw off competition from more than 140 entries from across the country.
Entries for the 15 categories were received from architects, contractors, suppliers, local authorities and schools themselves for submission across key areas of the design, building and equipping of schools.
The inaugural awards were organised by the British Council for School Environments (BCSE) to mark best practice in UK design and construction of schools.
The Thomas Deacon Academy, designed by Foster and Partners, also received a highly commended award in the "Inspiring Design – Secondary School" category.
Today, the academy's director of colleges Barry Featherstone said: "It is a very proud achievement to have gained in only our first six months."
The academy uses Thin Client Citrix technology, which is typically found in universities, not schools.
It means pupils can log on to the academy's system at one of 1,000 stations dotted around the school buildings.
Mr Featherstone said: "Instead of having blocks of PCs, there are screens and work stations where pupils can log on. Staff and pupils can log on to the server from any of the stations and even from home.
"We also have a room of Apple Macs, which we call the multimedia research centre, where pupils have access to high level graphic displays allowing them to do their own publishing."
Director of BCSE Ty Goddard said: "The quality of entries led to some fierce debate among the judges and rightly so.
"But Thomas Deacon Academy shows that the right investment and approach can produce fantastic projects which we can be proud of and all learn from.
"This is particularly true in the ICT field, which is so crucial to our children's learning."
The award is a further boost to the £50 million academy, which was built to replace three secondaries – Deacon's School, John Mansfield School and Hereward Community College.
It is one of the largest schools in Europe and saw off competition from more than 140 entries from across the country.
Entries for the 15 categories were received from architects, contractors, suppliers, local authorities and schools themselves for submission across key areas of the design, building and equipping of schools.