Natterhub is proud to call Maidwell Primary School one of our early adopter schools. With Mr. Geoff Woods, ICT & Digital lead at the helm, they have supported us in developing our platform to perfectly fit the primary classroom, both remotely and in school. We applaud your enthusiasm, Maidwell, and look forward to seeing the progress your pupils make using Natterhub.

Tell us about the quality of our Teacher led and Natterled lessons...

After such a long time in lockdown when pupils have been spending more time than ever on screens, I have asked teachers to have a clear focus on online safety. The Natterhub lessons are ideal for this and every class in the school is currently working their way through these lessons for the coming term. Our pupils are very capable on screens but they still find themselves making mistakes in group chats outside of school and we spend a lot of time sorting out friendship issues and upsets as a result of things going wrong. 

After all, it is the main way that young people and in fact adults communicate so it makes sense to us at Maidwell that we need to focus on teaching our pupils to communicate as well as possible through screens, in all situations whether it is a formal email, a message in a group chat, protecting yourself against unwanted contact in a game or reporting inappropriate content.

We like the fact that Natterhub lessons do all this for us. Working your way through the slides is easy and it promotes a lot of in depth conversations that young people need to have.

I would rate Natterhub lessons to easily be on a level with Rising Stars, White Rose and Twinkl quality and comparing these to other online safety lessons, they stand alone. Even with many high profile online learning platforms, it is difficult for the lessons to get the right tone. Many of my pupils find some pre-recorded or online lessons patronising but with Natterhub, the tone is spot on.

Talk to us about how easy or difficult it is to use the platform.

We chose Natterhub for our remote learning at a time when we needed a child-friendly platform designed with children in mind. We could have chosen Zoom or Teams but there is no way these were designed for schools and young people. We chose Natterhub because it allowed us not just to deliver content to our pupils, but we could actually continue to educate our pupils and give feedback day after day.

The Natterhub platform is very easy to use because it has been designed for children. We adopted the tool very early on so when it was first released there were a few bugs and glitches but whenever we contacted the Natterhub team, things were ironed out incredibly quickly.

As soon as you start using the platform, you realise how intuitive it is and how school friendly it is too.

How does the assessment system (The Badges of Honour) aid your teaching and learning?

The badge of honour system makes it really easy for the teacher to have an at-a-glance overview of where every child is. After every lesson, pupils are awarded badge power and they like to check it is there after the lesson and again after they have done the quiz that goes with each lesson.

During the pandemic, we rewarded the children with badge power through the newsfeed and it was a great way to motivate the children. What’s great about the badges is that you can reward both academic work and also for kindness to friends so you are really encouraging good use of social media at the same time.

How did Natterhub support you and your pupils during the lockdown?

We used Natterhub right the way through and exclusively to teach remotely. There were a few extra pieces of functionality that we requested from the team and they jumped in it straight away to make sure we had what we needed. 

It is so unusual to get this kind of service from an edtech company. In my experience, normally it takes ages to get a response and then when you do, they are not able to adapt the platform to suit your needs but with Natterhub it’s different - they genuinely want to support schools as best they can.

What do you say to your colleagues about Natterhub?

When I suggested using Natterhub, there were many questions from members of staff because it was so new. It was similar with the parents but once we had got started, there was no doubt in my mind and no doubt in any other staff member’s mind that we had chosen the right tool for the job. 

We are so happy that we have Natterhub as not just a framework for our remote learning but a framework to teach important digital literacy skills and critical thinking at a time when they need it more than ever.

What are your pupils' experience of Natterhub?

All of our pupils have really enjoyed using Natterhub and even when we got back to school some pupils were worried we would not be using it so much. I reassured them that we will of course still be using Natterhub and seeing how we can incorporate Natterhub into our daily classroom lives. It is too important not to use.

What do your colleagues think about Natterhub?

They all love it and are looking forward to not only using the online safety lessons in the coming term but also getting stuck into the Natterled lessons which we will be using for homework and group sessions in the classroom. 

Every Natterled lesson is pitched really well for each year group so they can be enjoyed and loved by Year 1 who will find them to be age appropriate  right the way through to Year 6 where they can get stuck into issues they are facing on a daily basis.

Our approach of ‘experiential learning’ is different from other online safety provision. What, in your experience, is the impact of this approach?

It makes sense for pupils to not just learn online safety rules by rote when it is something that affects them every single day. Having the news feed means that not only can they learn the lessons and the intentions in detail, they can also then practice what they have learned on the news feed.

If you just give pupils a list of do’s and don'ts and expect them to apply these when they are on a screen, it is unlikely to happen. With Natterhub pupils get to learn by doing. It is a bit like taking kids to the swimming pool in order to teach them to swim!

How is Natterhub is impacting your pupils understanding of digital literacy?

Our children have been able to have a great quality of remote learning and receive feedback in a space that is safe for them also to socialise.  As a result they are motivated to be respectful and considerate because it has become such an integral part of how we learn.