The Perse School, situated in Cambridge, England, was founded in 1615 and is one of the top-performing independent schools in the country. The school today welcomes pupils from all over the world. Like many schools, The Perse School faced possibilities and challenges due to the COVID pandemic in finding ways of integrating digital platforms for both teaching and assessment.

Dugga met online with Paul Baker, Head of Computing & Digital Strategy at The Perse School in Cambridge, to find out more about how learning & assessment is changing.

How have your systems and delivery methods been changing over the last two years?
Paul: The Perse School used various online systems but consolidated its tools during recent years to focus on a more streamlined Office 365 experience for students including Teams & OneNote. Dugga fitted more naturally into this transition than many other products for assessment, not only because of its focus on Teams integration but because of its wider range of supported question types.

We first started with the music and computer science departments because they had previously used online quizzing and assessment more extensively. The music teachers have helpfully fed back ideas from this process and the Dugga development team hopes to release these additional functionalities soon.

The existing Teams integration which Dugga offers was another important factor for us in selecting Dugga because Dugga allows assessment events to be created directly from Teams with assessments showing up in the students� and staff Teams & Outlook calendar. We are now extending our training and deployment to additional departments, assisting departments with assessment creation and establishing understanding on different scenarios for when staff might choose a Microsoft Forms Quiz (quick & flexible but limited question types and no assessment options such as enforced exam time length or secure browser) versus Dugga with its extensive question types and rich assessment settings and security options.

How is Dugga used at your school?
We use Dugga for all types of homework assignments, quizzes, auto-correcting diagnostic tests, and formal exams.

How has Dugga helped you in your daily work and challenges? What are your favourite features?
We use Dugga for both termly assessments and less formal diagnostic tests, helping pupils understand their progress across subjects. Dugga also provides a formal and secure assessment option for remote exams, which is reassuring after recent uncertain times.

In your opinion, which are the main benefits of using Dugga?
Benefits include rich question types for engaging and useful tests, time savings for staff, extensive security options for both formal and informal assessments, departmental resource collation, and Teams integration for engaging learning and assessment. Dugga continually develops new features each term.