Wednesday 27 May 2026
We recently hosted the first of a series of Apple Education Community school visits, providing an opportunity to connect, learn, and share with other like-minded educators comprising Apple Distinguished Educators, Apple Learning Coaches, Apple Professional Learning Specialists and educators and leaders from Apple Distinguished Schools in the upper North Island. These tours mark a revival of the old Apple Bus Tours from the early days of our laptop programme, when former Maths and Computer Science teacher Ro Bairstow oversaw the College’s e-learning programme.
We started the day with a visit to St Cuthbert’s College, where Julia Parker, Digital Innovation Specialist, showed us a variety of classes from Year 2 to Year 12 using iPads and MacBooks in their various subjects. It was great to see Year 2 students producing animations of Physics phenomena on their iPads using Keynote and Freeform.
The group then came out to King’s, where the campus could not have looked better or the school more industrious. After being welcomed by our Deputy Head of Pedagogy, Kelly Bigwood, the visitors chose to attend any two presentations on Apple Classroom and Notability (two of our classroom teaching mainstays), virtual and artificial realities, artificial intelligence, or our approach to device procurement and management.
This year we have to renew our recognition status as an Apple Distinguished School, and engagement with the Apple Education Community here and in Australia is an important part of the re-application process.
It is a great honour being part of the Distinguished Schools programme and to be selected as a host-school, as well as being a testament to our commitment to the important role of digital technologies in the modern learning environment.
David Parr - Head of E-Learning