Case Study

Fortismere School, Muswell Hill, London

Customer Profile
Fortismere School is a high achieving and dynamic mixed community comprehensive secondary school and sixth form college in Muswell Hill, North London, teaching 1,602 students. With a strong focus on academic excellence, as well as diverse cultural enrichment, the school recently featured as one of the Top 20 comprehensives in the country in a Times newspaper article.

The Education Challenge
Fortismere School set out to improve their ICT provision within the Music department to raise pupil achievement and motivation, and to better equip the school amongst it's contemporaries in the local area. Many surrounding schools had already begun to implement music ICT facilities, and whilst the academic results at Fortismere remained enviable, this was increasingly due to the determination of the Music staff and less on the facilities available to students.

The Solution
Counterpoint provided several consultancy visits to site and liaised with Fortismere's contractors, architects and teaching staff to assess the optimum configuration. The facility now includes audio cabling linking several rooms to a central recording studio control room, an audio recording and editing studio, and a PC-based classroom providing the latest in music software and teaching technologies.

The music ICT suite comprises 10 Music PC's, a network server and a teacher's PC providing remote control, monitoring and interaction with student computers. An audio network enables the teacher to broadcast audio, including spoken word, directly into student's headphones, and monitor audio from each student PC, making recordings into the eSAAMS assessment software. The teacher can also broadcast their screen to all student PC's, power-on and power-off the systems remotely, lock the student computers and engage with pupils one-on-one.

The installation of equipment is only the beginning of any schools implementation of music ICT. Subsequent to installation, Counterpoint has provided extensive onsite training on equipment and working methods to staff and students, including a practical hands-on introduction to the recording studio.

The Benefits
The music ICT suite provides Fortismere with software tools for a wide range of abilities and interests; from beginners using music software for the first time, to budding producers and remix artists. The teachers now benefit from a selection of tools and resources: audio recording and assessment, reference material for an ICT-based scheme of work, and software designed for whole-class teaching. The 24 track recording studio control room provides the students with the opportunity to compose, arrange, produce and post-produce their own pieces using professional sounds and microphones before mastering them down to CD.

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