Training Day

Ella Barden from the Physics Department organised an initial training and theory day for staff at G&L to learn the safety protocols and flying techniques of our brand new drone. The team from Drone Safe UK have been incredibly kind and supportive in their work with us and have taken care to ensure that we feel comfortable with the safety features and precautions. For those with miniature helicopter flying experience it was the opportunity to test their flying proficiency but for most of the staff the controller and instructions were a new challenge to master. It was really impressive how easily the drone was able to hover and stay in one locations without any input from the pilot. Consequently, we found it easy to manoeuvre, though with the disconcerting knowledge that it was really the drone flying itself rather than us being in control! We learnt how to take off and land, control altitude and direction and man the camera and video recording equipment. The photographs and videos were very impressive for their quality and clarity. We think they captured the AstroTurf and school buildings in all their glory. It was also interesting to see the school from a new perspective and to gain never before seen images of Hammersmith (and the near-by building site). The girls were all really interested to see the work being done and lots took time at break to come and ask questions and see what was being learnt.

We can see so much potential in this new equipment from field-work, filming of major events and teaching experiments and are really looking forward to integrating the equipment into our lessons. We will be taking time to practice using the equipment as well as writing up official health safety protocols and operating procedures for the school's policies.