Case study: Langley Park Girls’ School
How Langley Park Girls’ School Students use Adobe Spark to bring history to life.
Langley Park is an all-girls secondary school with around 1,600 students in Beckenham, Kent. The school’s focus is on educating the whole person, and developing young leaders who will make a difference and change the world. With that in mind, there’s a strong belief in integrating digital technology across the curriculum - even in subjects you might not expect. We spoke to Langley Park teachers and students to find out how they’re using technology to create more engaging and enjoyable history lessons.
Bringing visual arts and technology into the history classroom.
Ted Fox-Joyce, Head of Visual Arts, says, “Our young students have already embraced digital technologies and they’re very advanced at using apps. Enter Adobe Spark, which is a fantastic way of documenting ideas and progress of work, and it enables you to create excellent visual resources that can be shared with students.”
“History is so content-heavy, and Adobe Spark allows it to become more visualised for the learner, as well as much more enjoyable and engaging.”
Lucy Jerry, history teacher
Engaged Students.
This makes it a cross-curricular resource, ideal for Lucy Jerry, a history teacher at Langley Park. She says, “History is so content-heavy, and Adobe Spark allows it to become more visualised for the learner, as well as much more enjoyable and engaging.
“You actually get students who say, “Wow! This is totally different, and not what I expected in a history lesson!” It’s good to see how they adapt to the more visual side of learning. I’ve really enjoyed it, too. I like how you can make history more approachable for visual learners in particular. It’s hugely beneficial.”
Created by Maria and Shreya, GCSE History Students.
“Using something like Adobe Spark is a new way of learning which is quite exciting.”
Sherya, GCSE history student
Bring lessons to life.
With so much content to cover in history lessons, Lucy believes that Adobe Spark can help students absorb more information by bringing it to life in visual and creative ways. She says, “I think that’s what we have to realise - we can’t expect just to give students textbooks and expect them to learn everything straight away.”
Dr Anne Hudson, Langley Park’s headteacher, agrees, saying, “We all know that the best way of developing memory and remembering a huge amount of content is through a multi-sensory approach. We can show quite quickly how using digital technology actually helps enhance results for the students.”
What the students say.
Students also respond enthusiastically to using digital technology in their history lessons. Shreya, a GCSE history student, says, “Using Adobe Spark really helps you remember, because it creates an image in your mind and that’s easier when you come to revise it again.” Fellow student, Mariya, says, “I found that when we use Adobe, it helps me understand the material a lot more.”
This is music to Ted’s ears. He says, “We have to embrace this. We have to engage with digital technology, and think of ways of developing it within our own schemes of teaching and learning. We have to drive our lessons forward and make them more interesting, more engaging, and more dynamic for the students, so there’s greater communication and collaboration between students and staff.”
“Using digital technology actually helps enhance results for the students.”
Dr Anne Hudson, headteacher
Lucy’s final thought.
“I think that Adobe Spark encourages students to fall back in love with a subject again, rather than just walking into that lesson and thinking, “oh dear, I’m back in history again”.”
What’s next?
Since schools have been in lockdown, Lorraine and Peter have been upskilling by learning new Adobe products such as Character Animator and Illustrator, and say, “we know we can take this back and use them with the children. Character Animator is next!”
See how the apps are supporting pupils.
Adobe Express
Adobe Spark is a free educational tool for making presentations, graphics, posters, videos, web pages and more.
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