Technology has powerful potential to enrich learning experiences, alongside concerns which should be mitigated by intentional use, ongoing education, and partnerships between school and home. In a world of ever-evolving technologies, and worries about student safety online, schools continue to grapple with how best to prepare students for the world into which they will enter beyond the school gates. 

Walford Anglican School for Girls aims for smart integration of technologies into a deeply human environment of care, to empower students, support teachers, and enhance learning. With more than 40% of Walford graduates entering STEM fields each year after graduation, technology is used at Walford with a clear purpose, ensuring digital tools enhance and supplement expert teacher-led instruction.

Technologies in the Walford Junior School 

In Walford’s Junior School, the focus of learning and teaching is a deliberate balance between research-based, data-informed explicit instruction (such as in literacy and numeracy), inquiry learning, and social emotional learning, within a relational environment of curiosity and care.  

Technologies in the Junior School are slowly introduced to provide students with controlled early access to devices and programs that can enhance their learning experience. Every use of technology in the Junior School is intentional, ensuring screen time is monitored and limited, balancing the educational benefits of various applications with wellbeing, the importance of play, and maintaining digital safety.

From Reception, each child is allocated an iPad, enabling access to programs and tools such as PR1ME Mathematics, digital assessments, standardised testing, and the Seesaw Learning Experience platform. Devices remain at school until students are in Year 4, when they are able to take them home at the discretion of their teacher to complete assigned tasks. In Year 5, girls can take their iPads home for homework purposes from Monday to Thursday. 

The Junior School is also dedicated to helping families navigate the digital space, offering parent information sessions, such as the recent Wait Mate event about delaying or pausing children’s smart phone usage. 

Technologies in the Walford Secondary School 

In the Secondary School, smart phones are required to be in lockers from the start to the end of the school day. As such, phones are not seen on campus and break times are protected as a time for human connection and decompression. Students are found chatting with friends in spaces such as the Heart of Walford landscape, Design and Technology Lawns, Chapel Garden, or Fig Tree Café. Alternatively, they can be seen playing table tennis, utilising one of the sports courts, attending a lunchtime club, or enjoying quiet downtime in the Library. 

In secondary classrooms, one-to-one ‘bring your own’ (BYO) devices are intentionally employed in ways that are most appropriate to age, stage, subject area and task at hand. They empower students to use creative and collaborative digital tools, and to access personalised learning through teacher-selected apps and programs. When deployed in this manner at specific times and for particular purposes, devices free teachers to work closely with students one-on-one or in small groups, and to differentiate instruction in person and via technology.  

Middle School students use digital devices at the direction of the teacher, with many opportunities for approaches to learning using a range of tools in the classroom. As students progress into their senior years, technology is one of many ways in which they can exercise their agency, making choices about the best device to suit their learning style and needs. In specialist subjects such as Visual Arts – Design, Design and Technology, the Arts, and a range of Sciences, students utilise sophisticated programs and tools to explore, experiment, research and create. Students can use industry-standard software, developing 3D models with Fusion360, AutoCAD and SketchUp, programming with Python, and designing with the Adobe Suite. 

The Canvas Learning Management System provides students from Years 4-12 a centralised platform for learning materials, and a platform for real-time, continuous feedback that is immediately shared with parents to aid in the partnership between school and home, informing ongoing conversations about learning and growth.

Explicit Technologies Safety Curriculum

Alongside the work that is undertaken in classrooms, as part of Walford’s bespoke Wellbeing, Engagement and Belonging (WEB) program, students throughout the School are educated about digital citizenship, digital safety, ethical use, and academic integrity.  

Students are explicitly taught about the advantages and challenges of technologies, including coding, artificial intelligence, and virtual and augmented realities. They explore ways to ensure that their learning, critical thinking, creativity and academic integrity are protected and enriched. This teaching is adapted to the developmental needs of cohorts as they progress through the School.

From privacy and password management to the ethical use of AI, each student is equipped with the knowledge and skills to ethically, creatively, collaboratively, and discriminatingly deploy technologies.

When used judiciously and purposefully as part of a human-centred education, technologies offer schools a remarkable lever for deeper learning, engagement, inclusion, and future-readiness. At Walford, embedding the principles of inclusion, personalisation, and integrity empowers students to innovate, create, critically engage, and ensure that technology remains a helpful tool for their schooling and beyond.