“Don’t forget your iPads kids” may well become a common refrain at the fledgling Hammond Park Catholic Primary School in Success according to plans laid out in the school’s recent newsletter.
The school will open its doors for the first time next year, catering for one kindergarten class, but Foundation Principal Chris Cully said HPCPS would be a digitally enabled school from the get-go.
Each and every student would need an iPad, he wrote, which would support their learning in essential skill areas such as communication, numeracy, literacy, fine motor dexterity, creativity and self-directed learning.
Tablet computers offered benefits to teachers in managing class time and in varying teaching activities, particularly for students with special needs.
“With iPads, students have the world at their fingertips anywhere they might be and the only limitation to what students might do in this vast space may well be us, parents and teachers,” Mr Cully wrote.
The iPads will be individually owned and managed but will be configured for classroom use by the school.
Despite the HPCPS’s embrace of technology, however, good and creative teaching would remain at the forefront.
“As I have said before, good teaching does not arrive in a handheld computing device,” Mr Cully wrote.
“We need our teachers to be creative and keen to adapt to the needs of our students”.
Mr Cully also announced the appointment of David Hayden as their foundation Kindergarten teacher.
Mr Hayden has worked as an early childhood learning consultant at the Catholic Education Office in Leederville for the past three years.
The school also announced the appointment of Bob Niven as its first Business Manager.
Mr Niven has been involved in a number of major school amalgamation and extensive building projects in Western Australia and New South Wales.
School starts for Hammond Park Catholic Primary on Monday, February 4, 2013.