Plymouth City Council

The Merlin vision for Plymouth is to enable our schools to be able to create and share content within their own establishments and beyond.

We want the opportunities that Merlin provides to be used as widely as possible and for staff, pupils, parents and partners to be involved in the process. We think it is vital for young people to be given access to safe and secure systems to collaborate and develop their digital identity.

We believe teachers should be empowered to use the technology for providing the best quality resources both in and out of school. We hope that schools embrace the technology to further the conversation between parents, governors and other partners of the school and the community.

Plymouth endeavours to continue the development of Merlin in its schools and support users with their journey to success.
Local Authority Merlin Roadmap

We adopted the use of Merlin from its launch so have been at the forefront of its development and progress. We have run several Merlin training courses at varying levels from beginner to administrator and supported schools with their individual requirements. After a complete awareness raising period we are now at the stage of supporting those active schools who require specific help. We intend to run specific training on the new features of Merlin such as Communicator and the Parental Engagement features over the coming months. We also will continue to provide support for our partners and colleagues across the city who have benefited greatly from the development of a shared place for their needs (see below for examples).

SIF
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Merlin has provided a unique opportunity for Plymouth staff to publish and create content specifically for its intended audience and has empowered schools, LA staff and partner organisations to communicate effectively. In the absence of a comparable service, Merlin has given departments a new way to regularly communicate with its audience, whilst retaining complete editorial control over the content and design of the information.

 

Our subject networks are particularly popular and have been successful due to the implementation and support we have been able to give the site owners and users. It has been particularly important to set these up and provide adequate training to the lead person to give confidence in updating and maintaining the site and ultimately have ownership of its development. In addition it has been vital to provide support for the initial users of a new place to gain confidence and reinforce the idea of collaboration and contribution. We have run successful workshops in these areas and would be happy to share further details with other authorities.  

 

A particularly powerful use of Merlin was a China Link site designed to enable communication between a Plymouth Primary School and a partner school in Jiaxing, China. With the support from the LA and the presence of a trained Chinese interpreter, translating text into Chinese, Merlin was able to be the shared place that pupils from both schools could collaborate with and learn about each other's cultures. Before Merlin, other methods such as email had failed to deliver the required channel of communication.