DIGITAL COMPETENCY

Palacio de Granda prides itself on being a Google Reference School and values the teaching of digital competency through the use of a variety of technologies. Students in 5th primary to 2nd bachiller are equipped with 1:1 chromebooks installed with digital books and resources needed for their studies in class and at home.  Secondary students also have access to 2 tech labs containing state of the art Windows 11 laptops. These come complete with the latest Adobe suite and AutoCAD for use in art and technical drawing, as well as all software required for their Technology and ICT subjects. 1st to 4th primary students have access to 2 cabinets of shared chromebooks, which they use in various subjects as well as for their weekly Computer Science lessons.

All staff have a laptop each and every classroom has a projector or a Promethean ActivPanel. Teachers use Google Classroom as their online learning platform, enabling them to provide distance learning for students who temporarily cannot attend in person.

Starting from 1st primary, all students become competent Google Workspace users during their time at Palacio de Granda, and are continually taught how to stay safe online and use technology responsibly through our digital citizenship lessons and external speakers. The school provides a chromebook monitoring system and rigorous firewall to keep students safe online and monitor their activity.

As well as digital devices, the school is equipped with many different types of robotics equipment for use in Infants all the way up to Bachiller. In Infants they learn computational thinking skills through programming Bee-Bots, which helps them in their transition to 1st primary where they complete a programming course introducing them to the basics of sequences and loops. In later stages, we continue the learning process with game, animation and robotics programming via Scratch, Makey Makey, MBot robots and Arduino Zum Core Boards, finishing in 6th primary with a Python programming course. This knowledge is then extended throughout secondary school as students follow the Technology and ICT curriculum, building on their Python and Arduino programming skills.

Our enrichment and extracurricular programme also provides opportunities for students to develop a range of technological skills.