Thank You, Sandylands: 80 iPads Arrive at Kingstone School in Uganda

Every now and then something lands in my inbox that properly makes my week. This was one of them.

Eighty iPads have arrived at Kingstone Secondary School in Uganda, and the photos and video the school sent back are honestly some of the best I’ve seen in a long time. Full classrooms, heads down, students working through their own lessons and notes.

Before anything else, I want to be really clear about who made this happen. The iPads were given by Sandylands Primary School in Morecambe. Sandylands gave us over 100 iPads in total, and these 80 are the first to reach Uganda. It was their generosity, their kit and their decision to send it somewhere it could make a real difference. We’re just very glad to have helped get them where they’re needed.

Thank you, Sandylands

Sandylands is a two form entry primary school in the West End of Morecambe, just up the coast from us here in Lancashire. Giving away more than 100 iPads isn’t a small thing for any school. It takes someone to spot the opportunity, someone to say yes, and a fair bit of organising to get them on their way.

So to the staff, governors, children and families at Sandylands: thank you. You’ve given a school on the other side of the world a whole new way to learn, and I don’t think that’s an exaggeration once you see the pictures.

How Kingstone and Enquire are connected

Kingstone is a family of three schools run by the Kingstone Uganda Project, a local organisation that owns and manages its schools directly. Sponsorship, feeding, mentoring and community programmes all run through them, so support goes to real children in real classrooms.

The Enquire Learning Trust, which runs 32 primary academies across the north of England, built its friendship with Kingstone after a visit in 2025. Schools right across the trust have been raising money for Kingstone ever since, including a “Big Song and Dance” day in May this year.

We’re proud to work in partnership with Enquire, and that’s how Schudio came to be part of this. It’s a lovely example of what happens when schools in the UK and schools in Uganda get to know each other properly rather than just sending a cheque.

Uganda has been close to my heart for a long time too. I first went in 2015, and since then Schudio has helped raise over £50,000 for children and young people with additional needs there. There’s more on that on our About page.

What the iPads are being used for

This is the bit that really impressed me. Kingstone haven’t just handed the iPads out and hoped for the best. Paul Bugembe and the team have built their own learning system for them, called Kingstone Digital Learning, and it runs on the school’s own server.

Any student, any iPad

The iPads are shared classroom devices. A student picks up any iPad, logs in with their own student number and PIN, works, and logs out. Their notes and work follow their account to the next iPad, and the next student never sees them. If an iPad’s left untouched for ten minutes, it logs out on its own.

Lessons, notes and quizzes

• Teachers publish lessons with text, pictures, diagrams, PDF pages, video and audio, organised by subject and class.
• Students keep their own notebook, copying from the board, adding photos and drawing diagrams with a finger.
• Quizzes mark themselves, and teachers mark assignments and give feedback in the same place.
• There are class and whole school announcements, plus a progress page showing each student what they’ve done and what’s still to do.

Built for the realities on the ground

Everything works inside the school network, so it doesn’t depend on an internet connection. It restarts itself after a power cut, backs itself up every night and keeps its student lists in step with the school’s records automatically.

The iPads are older models that can’t be upgraded to the latest software, so the team built a converter that cuts long PDFs into short lessons the devices can handle comfortably. They’ve thought about privacy from the start as well: PINs are stored scrambled, accounts lock after five wrong tries, and nothing private is left on an iPad once a student logs out.

As someone who’s spent fifteen years building software for schools, I take my hat off to them. That’s careful, thoughtful work, and it’s exactly how you make donated kit last.

What happens next

Kingstone are starting carefully, which I love. The plan is a four week pilot with one class, one or two subjects and a handful of iPads, with named teachers, before rolling it out more widely.

Staff training comes first, then teachers publish their first lessons, then students get their PIN cards. They’re also putting a short use policy in place for students and staff, covering keeping PINs secret, always logging out and never sharing accounts.

Their own write up puts it well. The technology is ready, and the real value now depends on teachers putting good, short lessons online. Any school leader in the UK will recognise that one.

And there’s more to come

The rest of the Sandylands iPads are coming to Uganda with me when I visit in January next year. I’ll be going back to some of the old projects we’ve supported, which I haven’t been able to visit since late 2018, so it’s going to be a special trip.

I’ll share how it goes when I’m back, and I’m looking forward to seeing the Kingstone iPads being used in real lessons by then.

A thought for schools reading this

If you lead a school, there’s something in this for you too. Plenty of UK schools have a cupboard of older iPads or laptops that have been replaced and are sitting there doing nothing.

Sandylands have shown what that kit can become in the right hands. If you’re thinking about doing something similar, it’s worth working with an established partner on the ground first, as happened here, so the devices go where they’re wanted and someone’s ready to look after them. If you’d like to know more about the Kingstone schools, the Kingstone Uganda Project website is a good place to start.

Thank you

So, one more time. Thank you to Sandylands Primary School for giving the iPads. Thank you to the Enquire Learning Trust for the friendship that connects all of this. And thank you to Paul and everyone at Kingstone for the care they’re putting into using them well.

Eighty iPads so far, more on the way in January, and a classroom full of young people learning in a new way. That’s a good week.