Tell us a little about Southbrook school…
Southbrook School is a Special Needs (SEN) school with just in excess of 120 secondary age pupils who have mild to moderate learning difficulties. Each year group (years 7-11) has approximately 30 pupils split into two classes.
What are some of the main IT challenges you have faced?
Safeguarding our pupils is a top priority as they are more vulnerable than pupils in mainstream schools. Keeping them safe and being able to help them with any issues is very important.
In addition, classroom monitoring is important for us to keep pupils on task and ensure they don’t stray from the work they’re meant to be doing.
How has DNA helped at your school?
DNA has helped us to keep track of our pupils’ activity and what they’re typing, searching for or copying in all applications, not just the internet. It alerts us to what a certain pupil has typed or images they might have copied. DNA also has a large number of keywords that trigger alerts, which we really like. It also gives an explanation of each phrase, which is helpful for our staff if they don’t know what a certain phrase means.
How have you found the remote support tools in DNA?
We use the remote control tools to provide support to staff across the school without having to physically go to them. We also use the remote support to log off machines that have been left on in classrooms.
DNA includes SoftLINK classroom management. What do your teachers find are the main benefits?
We’ve trialed SoftLINK and our teachers really like it as they can make sure pupils are on task and lock machines to take away any distraction. They can also share their screen so that the pupils are focused on the right thing during lessons.
How do DNA and SoftLINK compare to previous solutions you have used?
We’ve previously used some free software, but they just didn’t provide the level of features we needed. The safeguarding has been really beneficial for us.
What do you think of the DNA support team?
The tech support team have provided quick and easy fixes over the phone for any problems we’ve had.
How do you see DNA and SoftLINK supporting your school in the future?
We will definitely continue to use DNA. It sits in the background and does what we want it to do. We’d also like to continue to roll SoftLINK out across the whole school.
