for Students
for Educators
Istituto Comprensivo Statale G. Ungaretti is a state school with students aged 3–14 years old serving a local community in Melzo, a former industrial town with a high proportion of low-income families. The school has 1,100 students and 10% have special educational needs.
The school’s leadership is on a mission to provide all students with exceptional learning through equal access to digital tools to best prepare them to be successful in the modern world. They chose to invest in Apple technology because of the flexibility and versatility iPad offers their students, and the ongoing programmes to support teacher development.
“Traditional learning approaches that remain commonplace in Italy are failing to prepare some children for the modern world, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds,” says Executive Head Teacher Stefania Strignano.
The school wanted a creative, powerful tool that was intuitive to use for existing staff, and which could deliver support to any future new staff members.
Enter Apple Professional Learning and its free tools and resources for getting the most out of Apple technology. After initial advice from education authority experts, the school now hosts its own hands-on training sessions for educators to learn and share knowledge. For example, to prepare to teach coding, teachers practise programming a Blue-Bot robot with an iPad app to develop skills. “This virtuous loop is a fundamental ingredient for making our school successful,” says Francesca Testa, an Apple Professional Learning Specialist within the school who runs regular sessions for her colleagues.

This foundation ensures that new teachers have a strong development pathway, while experienced staff continue to grow their teaching practice. As more teachers learn the fundamentals of using iPad, they are empowered to explore other development programmes — like Apple Teacher, where teachers earn rewards as they learn new skills, all at their own pace.

As they bring these fresh ways of learning into the classroom, students are thriving. In music lessons, students gather round a real piano to play and write their own music using Apple Pencil with Pages. Others use GarageBand to create and record their own sounds in concert with classmates playing instruments. In coding class, students use CoSpaces Edu on iPad to make 3D creations and Swift Playgrounds to animate in AR and VR environments.
“Today, students have a very high knowledge of coding, enabling them to achieve skills 30% higher than the regional average. We couldn’t be more proud of how our teachers are using Apple technology to increase student engagement and achievement,” says Stefania.