Civica has claimed “Most Effective ICT Partnership” at the Excellence in BSF Awards.

The award, one of 18 presented by Partnership for Schools (PfS) - the Government’s delivery organisation for BSF – celebrates genuine synergy between schools, Sheffield City Council and Civica and was awarded for strong communication between the partners, school satisfaction and the ability to support the wider community and regeneration projects.

The excellent partnering approach impressed the judges, along with the customised ICT which meets the needs and aspirations of each school, the involvement of the whole school community and the high level of innovation in the LearnSheffield Managed Learning Environment (MLE).

Civica is the ICT partner for the Sheffield Local Education Partnership (LEP) and began work in 2007, to date the programme has opened 4 schools for over 4,000 students at Yewlands Technology College, Silverdale School, Newfield School and Talbot Specialist School in the city.  The Civica team, led by Lee Burley, received its prize at the Excellence in BSF awards at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel in London last Thursday night (November 12).

Civica’s customised “LearnSheffield” MLE has helped transform learning for the schools’ students by giving them freedom to use learning resources online.  The BSF schools such as Yewlands are already benefiting from the new IT and Managed Service, GCSE results are already improving.

The new ICT environment created with Civica delivers clear branding for each of the schools which promotes school cohesion and real impetus for learning. 

In addition, LearnSheffield is changing the adoption of technology by teaching staff: a survey of the BSF schools’ teachers in September 2008 found that over half of them wanted more assistance with ICT while only two per cent repeated the request when questioned this year.

Simon Downing, chief executive at Civica, said: “We’re delighted to receive this award for our work supporting students in Sheffield.  As part of our commitment to ambitious schools programmes in the UK and internationally, Civica is proud to be working with Sheffield City Council and the Local Education Partnership in delivering a learning environment and managed service where children and their communities flourish.

“One of the key factors in this award is that our team is very closely engaged with the students, teachers and governors, helping them identify local schools’ needs.  The staff and governors have effectively become our internal champions for the LearnSheffield capabilities, which is exactly what is needed to achieve further advances in learning in these schools.”