Founded in 1552, Shrewsbury School moved to its current premises on the bank of the River Severn in Shropshire in 1882. One of the 9 Clarendon schools in the country, the independent school is among one of the most prestigious in the UK. Needless to say, they place a large focus on ensuring that all pupils, whether national or international, have access to the best possible education to set them up for success in life.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced many schools to quickly pivot to embrace digital learning solutions, and this was one of the things that prompted Shrewsbury School to carry out a full audit into the learning technology they were using. Although many classrooms had interactive boards and lamp projectors, these were prohibitive in the development of teaching and interaction with pupils in the classroom.

Teachers struggled to connect their devices and the large, original windows in some classrooms meant that pupils struggled to see what was being projected due to the amount of ambient light. Shrewsbury School knew that they had to overhaul the learning technology that was currently installed in order to continue providing the level of quality education that their pupils required.

Although they originally looked to upgrade the lamp projectors to longer lasting, better quality laser projectors, value for money quickly became a consideration. They realised that for a similar price, they could instead invest in interactive boards and all of the additional features and functionality that came along with these.

Working alongside a trusted reseller, Sound Innovations, BenQ were invited to demonstrate our solutions to the school. Our demonstrator’s level of knowledge and his demonstration skills were instrumental in the school’s decision to choose BenQ.

Another important consideration was the simplicity of the boards. Teachers found that the boards from other brands were too cluttered, had too many features, and were packed with apps that would rarely if ever be used. BenQ’s boards have plenty of innovative features included, but one of the most important considerations for Shrewsbury School was the ability for it to function as a simple whiteboard.

Teachers at the school have a variety of different teaching styles, and several are very traditional in their approach as they choose to stand and write notes on the board throughout the lesson, rather than sharing documents. On the other hand, there are plenty of other teachers who love that they’re ability to cast to the board, and plug in their device for easy access to their files.

The fact that BenQ’s interactive boards can comfortably cater for both styles of teaching means that staff members don’t have to worry about learning how to use technology that they’ll never use in lessons and can spend more time focusing on the most important part of their job: enabling pupils to individually flourish at school and beyond.

From the IT team’s perspective, the number of tickets being raised for issues with classroom technology has drastically reduced, freeing up more of their time to focus on more important tasks. The IT staff in particular like the DMS (device management solution) software, as this enables them to set power on/off schedules for the boards.

Due to the busy nature of an independent school, there were occasions where projectors had been left on in classrooms reducing the lifetime of the product and contributing to energy bills. DMS, however, means that the team no longer have to check every classroom manually in order to ensure that the boards have all been turned off.

They can set timers to turn off the boards automatically, and they’re also able to remotely schedule updates to run on all boards across the school from one central location.

Since the installation of the boards in some classrooms, other teachers are keen to see more boards being installed across the school site.

The boards have improved the way that pupils engage with their lessons, and as a result they higher levels of participation supporting improved comprehension and knowledge retention. Teachers are able to more effectively demonstrate new concepts and subjects to pupils; illustrating complex topics in a way that is more easily understood.

When it comes to exam revision, teachers especially like the ability to cover a whole topic on the board and then share the full pdf of the session with pupils afterwards for their own reference. There’s no longer any barrier to using new technology and confidence levels in embracing new technology have been improved. One teacher’s feedback was, ‘I will never complain about anything so long as I get to continue using this fabulous new addition to my classroom!’

As a result of BenQ and Sound Innovations’ work with Shrewsbury School, they have since gone on to install LU935ST and LU9800 projectors in the school. There are already plans to continue the partnership and BenQ continues to work with the teaching staff offering ongoing training and support to maintain a futureproof learning environment.