Digital & Innovation

Caterham School has been recognised as a leading global school for its innovation with both technology and curriculum design.

Innovation at Caterham School goes well beyond pupils’ digital skills and use of technology.  Innovation is about developing new ideas that are meaningful and have a positive impact. We aim to be innovative in the way we deliver our teaching and learning, but also to instil an ethos of innovation within our own pupils.

THE EDGE CURRICULUM

Ensuring that our pupils have the skills and knowledge to thrive in a fast-changing world, is one of our core priorities. The EDGE curriculum, which stands for Explore, Develop, Grow, Evolve, is built upon three central elements: Learning to Learn, Big Ideas and Practical Problem-Solving. Each year group will experience these elements in different and challenging ways, whether that’s through the Theory of Knowledge and Critical Thinking (Learning to Learn), the environment and communication (Big Ideas) or the School in a Box and Circular Economy projects (Practical Problem-Solving), the Edge curriculum builds up a wealth of ideas, knowledge and skills which our pupils can put into action in lessons, in their day-to-day lives and to inspire them to face challenges and problems with the tools to overcome, redesign and rethink any problem they choose to tackle. Click here to read & see more…

OCA INNOVATION & COLLABORATION AWARD

The OCA Innovation & Collaboration Award is a great example of the importance of innovation to the wider Caterham community. Each year the Old Caterhamians Association award a prize to the team who come up with the most innovative idea for a solution to a problem they have identified.

Our 2021 winners:

In its first year, the prize was awarded to a group of First Year pupils who designed and trialled a completely plastic-free shampoo. They have gone on to work on developing this product further as well as exploring ways to raise awareness of the problems of microplastics in many everyday products.
There was little technology involved in their solution, but they researched their topic thoroughly and used a range of problem-solving skills to come up with what they believe is an entirely unique solution.

Our 2019 winners:

EDTECH 50

In 2019 Caterham was named as one of the UK’s EdTech 50 schools at a ceremony at The House of Lords. The award recognises the school’s broad embedding of technology, ranging from innovative courses which allow pupils to learn new digital skills, through to the way we monitor and evaluate our use of technology to remain agile and responsive to the latest developments in both technology and teaching ad learning. Read the full report HERE

TES AWARD

This award was given in recognition of our work developing an Innovation Centre which allows pupils to code and build out ideas free from the constraints of the timetable. The building itself is less important than the ethos it represents, and in reality pupils work on projects all across the school, sometimes developing ideas alone, but often in groups, who have decided to attack a problem that matters to them, either at a local level, or more widely.