MSP partners with Lenovo in schools initiative to bridge skills gap

StudyWith programme acts as student-built learning resource for other schools

Kettering-based MSP PCS Business Systems has set up an initiative to teach students real-world tech skills, according to operations manager Chris McQuade.

The StudyWith scheme educates students on web development, project management, videography and graphic design. They use these skills to produce online content that other schools can access online.

The students use VR headsets, 180-degree cameras and tablets to produce content for their website. The equipment is provided by Lenovo.

"They can showcase technology in the classroom and then other schools can use that resource," McQuade said.

"A lot of education budgets have diminished, and it can become quite stale, with similar lessons being done day in and day out.

"This is a resource that acts as a guide that schools can look at and be inspired by."

StudyWith is the brainchild of McQuade, and the idea was sparked by a parents' meeting at his son's school.

At the meeting, McQuade heard about a recent trip to a farm where students took photos and then created a presentation using a green screen and their pictures.

Afterwards he spoke to his son's principal, who said that teaching real-world skills in the classroom was a struggle due to increasingly dwindling budgets and time constraints.

PCS is an education solution provider partner of Lenovo, and at a partner meeting, McQuade approached the vendor to gauge its interest in being part of his embryonic scheme.

"At the meeting Lenovo asked us partners what funding and activities we would like to do," he explained.

"A lot of traditional resellers asked for money for cold-calling, flyers and email campaigns. I thought that was so boring and isn't the kind of marketing I like to do.

"So I waited and asked the marketing manager for a few VR headsets to go and do a few VR experiences with schools and spread the word that way."

He got in touch with his old drama teacher and the pair set up the StudyWith initiative, which brings pupils at Leicester-based Brookevale Groby secondary school and St Elizabeth's primary school to the project.

PCS has a partnership with Great Ormond Street Hospital and McQuade is working on helping children in that environment to use the VR technology in tandem with the website to aid their learning.

"We want our website to have everything from key stage one all the way through to A-levels," he said.

"So whatever you're teaching you can have content there to draw from across all levels of mainstream education."