Scenes from a superschool - one day in the life of Britannica
The whole concept of what it is to receive an education is what we have changed in Britannica from the happy chaos of creative arts in the primary school to the rigorous cramming for examinations in the upper school.
| A scene from a primary crafts lesson. Here you can see a teacher using a smartboard - it's state-of-the-art technology which involves a digitally projected screen that can be drawn on as well as used as a straightforward giant PC monitor. The children love them and all the primary and many of the secondary classrooms are equipped with them. |  |
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Traditional reading skills are taught and the children have plenty of time to develop their love of books. The library, more of that later, has a large collection of literature for children and the nail-biting intensity of the experience of a book is a familiar feeling for our youngsters. |
| Moving way up the school now we have some fine budding artists and there are lots of examples of their works decorating our distinctive wide corridors all through the school. |  |
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No technology can replace an experienced teacher and there's still the humble whiteboard and teacher combining to chase and, we are pleased to say, achieve superb university entrance results. |
| But, back to the technology again. The school has two fully-equipped computer laboratories; one of which is located in the library/multi-media centre. Every one of the PCs in the school is running Windows 7 Enterprise Edition on 64-bit dual-core processors. Here you can see a teacher and children working in one of the labs. |  |
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It isn't all work though. We have a large swimming pool and there are timetabled classes for children as well as swimming clubs. |
| And there's other fun too. A gigantic multi-coloured parachute provided here an unusual (that's to say, unusual in most schools though not in ours) exercise/drama lesson for some primary children. |  |
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And fun finds its way into our music lessons. Apart from the formal teaching of music in a custom-built music room quite a few youngsters practise together here to perform later in concerts with their bands. Here's a budding drummer going through her paces in the music room. |
| And a year 8 student learning-by-doing playing on a junior member of the xylophone family. |  |
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And, of course, there's all that technology again for when it's needed. |
| And there's dressing up to study the Aztecs. |  |
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And English and Spanish and French and German and Russian. |
| And that vital personal touch
...and that's a day in Britannica. |
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