How a high-performing Hull secondary went 1:1 with devices, safely

St Mary's College is a large, coeducational Catholic secondary school and sixth form in Hull, with around 2,500 students from Year 7 through to its sixth form. Rated Outstanding by Ofsted, it is known for a pioneering approach to education alongside strong pastoral care. Giving every student their own device, going 1:1, was one step within a wider, multi-year technology strategy we have been delivering with the school. This case study focuses on that rollout: how we made a big, potentially risky step a safe and successful one.

The challenge

For any secondary school, moving to 1:1 devices is a significant undertaking. Get it wrong and you risk overwhelmed networks, an overloaded IT team, safeguarding gaps and technology that never really lands in the classroom. Before a single device was handed out, the school needed confidence on several fronts:

• Can the network cope? Hundreds of new devices connecting at once put real demand on infrastructure.
• Can support cope? A large fleet of devices needs a support model that can keep up.
• Can pastoral care cope? High device volumes, taken home by children, create new pastoral and welfare considerations.
• Are teachers ready? Devices only add value if staff are confident embedding them in the curriculum.
• Is it affordable, and sustainable? The cost is not just the devices; it is repairs, damage and consumables over time.
• Is it safe? With students taking devices home, safeguarding was a central concern.

What we did

We made sure the school was ready before we rolled anything out. As part of the wider strategy programme, we worked through each of the readiness questions above with the school, checking the network could take the load, that the support model could scale, that pastoral teams were prepared, and that teachers were ready to use the technology in their teaching.

We chose the right device and platform. We partnered with ASUS and rolled out their Chromebooks, running on Google. For a school of this size, that combination matters: the devices are rugged and built for daily student life, and because they run on Google, they enrol and manage centrally at scale and integrate directly with the Google Workspace for Education tools staff and students already use. It also keeps the school on a consistent, cloud-first Google footing.

We built an affordable, sustainable financial model. Rather than treat the devices as a one-off purchase, we helped the school put a maintainable budget in place that accounted for the realities of children using technology: repairs, accidental damage and consumables. Because the devices go home with students, we made sure there was a well-structured budget for damage and replacements, not just the initial rollout.

We built a replacement programme that protects learning. If a device is damaged, the student takes it to the pastoral team and is given a replacement on the spot. The technology team then collects the damaged device for repair. The result is no downtime for the student and no interruption to their learning, and a process that runs through the pastoral structure the school already trusts.

We put safeguarding at the centre. With devices going home, protecting students was paramount. We worked closely with the school's safeguarding team so that every device was monitored and tracked in line with Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE). Activity is captured continuously, with anything flagged out of hours reviewed by the safeguarding team the next working day, so nothing is missed, but alerts do not pile up with people who cannot act on them outside school hours. We ran a thorough training programme with the safeguarding team, rebuilt safeguarding and acceptable-use policies, and supported parental engagement so families understood how the devices were kept safe.

That safeguarding work delivered an unexpected benefit: it surfaced potential challenges the trust had not previously been aware of, and helped improve outcomes for students.

This case study focuses on the 1:1 rollout. The wider technology strategy and our EdTech work, embedding technology into teaching and learning, are substantial pieces in their own right.

The results

Now in its third year, fully embedded, and run through the pastoral structure the school already trusts.