TANDBERG EDUCATIONAL’S ICM/DIVACE DUO SYSTEM AT WESTWOOD HIGH SCHOOL

Tandberg Educational’s track record over two decades helped it to success when Westwood High School, a top comprehensive in Staffordshire was looking for a new multimedia language system.

Westwood High School, an 875-pupil comprehensive in Leek installed a Tandberg Educational IS9 20 years ago and was seeking to upgrade. It wanted only the best for students’ aged 13-18, most of whom study French and German with a good number of them being taught Spanish as well.

The school has excellent examination results and a reputation for friendliness as well as one for academic achievement and wanted to ensure its standards were improved by its investment.

‘‘We decided to have a couple companies in school to show us what they could offer. We had individual sessions with them and Tandberg Educational, were able to network with the RM machines, offered the right kind of deal and got the contract.’’

Mr Perkin said that Tandberg Educational’s ICM, Divace Duo and CSS Net have been installed since Easter 2000 and had been absolutely marvellous.

He and his staff of four were highly impressed with it and the new capabilities the packages provide and the students had been equally excited by them. ‘‘We got it just in time for the examination oral tests so the students could practise individually. They could also use the Word 2000 French, German and Spanish spell checkers.

They can re-edit work, learn and speak and can record themselves so that they are able to spot mistakes and put them right. And there is the added bonus that the lab can be used by the Modern Foreign Languages department and others as a multi-media suite.’’

As far as the staff are concerned another big plus is the ability to monitor students without teachers leaving their own console.

Westwood High School is proud of its record on modern languages and now it is proud of its state of the art language system. Hopefully it will encourage more students to tackle languages on top of French and German, which they all do in year nine. By year 10 most carry on with their language study. The current count is 130 out of the 190, with 120 students also taking up German. And in the sixth form there has been a good take-up of Spanish.

A year on, and Westwood High School are still impressed with their purchase.

Head of Languages Mike Perkin says: “The ICM, Divace Duo and CSS Net that were installed in 2000 can only be described as impressive pieces of equipment. The pupils from year 9 upwards are now confidently using the facilities provided and also finding it very enjoyable. Visitors from other schools are still coming along for demonstrations of the equipment and appear to be just as impressed as we are.”

“This year, with exam time getting ever closer we are hoping to see even better exam results, due to this latest Tandberg Educational installation.”

www.tandberg.co.uk