About The Learning Platform
A critical element of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme is educational transformation. This will help to achieve significant, systematic and sustained change, ensuring outstanding outcomes for students in all settings.

Within this context, personalised learning will be a valuable tool that will enable students to work at their own pace, in subjects that motivate them and at times when they want to work. All available 24 hours a day 365 days of the year.

Integrated portal
To ensure that this can be achieved within affordability constraints, schools need to look at innovative ways of giving their students access to the resources they will need to succeed.

The Novus Learning Platform is an integrated portal that provides students with access to content, VLE packages and school applications. The configurable interface will provide students with access to all their learning tools via a browser. This gives them fast and secure remote access to learning resources with the same functionality as they currently have in the classroom.

Benefits the student

• Increased access to ICT resources from home and at school
• Learn when they want, using the tools they want
• Learning is fun
  

Benefits parents

• Safe learning environment
• Able to monitor child’s attendance in real-time and from home
• Offers improved communications between school and home
  

Benefits the school’s ICT team

• The desktop environment is device independent
• Simple to upgrade and enhance all desktops
• Centralised management and control frees time for other tasks

Benefits the school’s senior management

• Extends the reach of the school’s learning resources to the home
• Links and enhances teacher, pupil and parent communication
• Affordable and sustainable solution

Meeting the needs of schools and academies
The Novus Learning Platform solution has been co-developed with help from Edensor Technology College. This ensures the solution will directly meet the needs of other schools and academies.

• Download the Learning Platform Brochure

Thomas Deacon Academy
Due to open in 2007, the academy replaces 3 existing schools and is committed to provide an outstanding learning environment that ensures the potential of all its pupils is fully nurtured whatever their background or ability. To achieve this goal, the most up-to-date IT solutions are being implemented to support teaching and provide new opportunities for learning. With a strong “University Style” approach to learning, this will require significant investment in: resource rich classrooms, a multi-media research centre, computer rich support for learning and a virtual learning environment (VLE).
Download The PDF Case Study

Edensor Technology College
Edensor Technology College have made great strides in improving facilities. Their aim is to prepare students for the technological expectations of modern industry, to promote achievement, the desire for a higher education and a thirst for success. To help achieve this they are using the Novus Learning Platform to significantly expand the school day well beyond normal opening hours enabling students at home to access their files and relevant software applications at any time of day or night.
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Ashton-on-Mersey School
Ashton-on-Mersey is a high performing school, recognised by OFSTED as an ‘outstanding’ education centre for its motivated teaching and support staff, excellent examination achievement and commitment to providing a productive and rewarding environment for pupils to learn in. The adoption of network-centric computing using Wyse Winterm thin clients and Citrix has enabled the school to create a secure and feature rich working environment for pupils without suffering the burden of operational and support issues.
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Jeff Joseph Sale Moor Technology College
Jeff Joseph Sale Moor Technology College, based in Sale, Cheshire, is a leading Technology College with over 1000 students.Previously named the Sale Moor School, it was renamed in 1994 as part of a government initiative to promote technology.The name derives from the mentor of the main sponsor of the school, Sir David Alliance. Novus recommended that Jeff Joseph implement Trend Micros Client Server Suite Anti-Virus solution across all desktops and servers.This provides centralised administration for anti-virus protection and centralised deployment of new anti-virus pattern file updates.
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Thin Client Technology in Schools
Many schools, while recognising the value that IT can bring to both administration and learning,have a patchwork of technology that has been pieced together from many sources over the years. Such a piecemeal approach, though forced out of necessity, requires a greater amount of time and money to be spent supporting it – money that is being diverted from investment in newer technologies.This white paper looks at what a thin client environment consists of and examines the benefits that it can bring to schools.We also offer some advice as to the process of implementing a thin client solution.
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Utilising Citrix in Schools
The benefits of using a server based approach to network infrastructure are well know to commercial organisations.But for schools the benefits and potential cost savings have not been so apparent.By providing enhanced connectivity for the entire school by optimising technology performance and allowing more users to be reached with more data;Citrix solutions ensure a high level of performance and security.
Download The PDF Case Study