RISO Education Solutions

John Mason School

Specialist schools are an important part of the government's plans to raise standards in secondary education. The Specialist Schools Programme helps schools to establish distinctive identities and raise standards through specialism. John Mason School, a large secondary school in Abingdon, recently achieved the status of a Specialist Visual Arts & Music School.

Achieving specialist status took John Mason School four years of hard work but there are rewards; each year the school receives an extra £126,000 in funding to help it reach its objective of improving results. The target is for over 65% of students to attain five or more GCSE grades A*-C. New funding is invested in facilities and equipment that support visual arts and music.

The funding is helping the school present a more visually exciting and attractive image. There are new exhibition areas where art and design is displayed to celebrate and encourage the talents of students. The school is also making lessons more varied and interesting by using visual aids like diagrams, pictures and charts which are presented using data projectors and through the use of colour print.

Alex Keeble is business manager at John Mason School. Alex explained the need for colour print: “As a visual arts school, we needed to communicate in colour. Colour attracts attention and is a better medium for presenting the visual arts. We use colour print in the classroom, in letters to home and in our school newsletter.” The school uses a RISO production printer to produce its colour print and copy output.

The RISO was selected after a careful evaluation of technologies, functionality and cost. The RISO is incredibly quick and can print and copy in both colour and black and white, but according to Alex, the main advantage of the RISO is the affordability of colour. “It is costing us no more to print in colour. Using the RISO, colour is a similar cost to black and white from our old photocopier.”

Lynne Attewell is resources manager and uses the RISO on a daily basis. Lynne says that demand for colour is increasing: “Teachers find that children respond better to colour. There is more interest and the quality of work is better.” Describing one of the many uses of the RISO, Lynne said: “We make copies of our students’ artwork for display. It is safer than putting original work on the wall.”
 

For more information call 0800 917 2020
RISO