We needed to design a flexible area for the delivery of the new IT Diploma where students could not do traditional IT work, hold weekly meetings, invite businesses in for consultations, give demonstrations to other students and run a mini enterprise. 

After considering the options at BETT we invited the team from Poddesking to give us a demonstration of the product on site so that we could realistically assess if these desk were right for us.  We were originally interested in the “Hexacom2” but decided that they were not the right size for our needs.  Following a very useful demonstration and discussion with Poddesking we ordered a few “Hexacom2” units and also had some modified 4 station units specially made up which are much smaller and hence increased our options for positioning the desks in the room. 

All of the units have proved to be excellent in both their flexibility and practicality of use.  Students enjoy working at the stations and they have proved successful with all groups.  We have had many comments from visiting staff from other schools and the county inspectorate about the professional business like layout within the room. 

The ability to run each desk off one network lead has allowed us to maintain hardwired connections for all PCs in the Diploma area and not rely on wireless at all which was a priority for us when we designed the room. 

The desks proved to be so successful that we have now placed some of the four station units in the Mathematics, English and Science departments.  In looking at the changing requirements for our use of IT in the future we will have no hesitation in using more of a variety of the units on offer in the future.

T Weeks – Head of IT