Cardiff’s Willows High School has received more than 30 laptops from Circle IT, which has introduced a scheme to regenerate a range of IT consumables and donate them to local schools across South Wales.
Cardiff Gate-headquartered, Circle IT, made the donation as part of its commitment to benefiting those in the local community and it’s now hoped that many of Willows 600-plus pupils will benefit from the opportunities the technology offers.
The laptops will replace the aging IT desktop equipment at Willows High School, which has recently been named as one of the most improved schools in Wales.
Circle IT made the donation through The Cardiff Commitment – an initiative led by Cardiff Council which aims to ensure that all young people in Cardiff are provided with the support, choices and opportunities to become personally successful, economically productive and actively engaged citizens. Circle IT’s involvement will see the company work with some of its larger, corporate clients to regenerate IT hardware, including laptops and servers, before donating them to schools across South Wales.
Roger Harry, Chief Executive of Circle IT, explains:
“We are a homegrown Cardiff company which works in many UK education establishments and are committed to investing in the education of others. We engaged with Willows and found that their current PC estate was more than ten years old, which has a knock-on effect to how pupils can engage with the technology.
“This initiative will re-use our client machines, which are just three years old, allowing pupils to now benefit from faster technology. We plan to donate more than 500 laptops a year to schools across South Wales.
“Cardiff is one of the most rapidly growing cities in the UK and with this comes many opportunities to connect future generations with the world of work. Technology goes hand in hand with what the scheme is looking to achieve and we are delighted to be able to play a small part in helping schools that are most in need.”
As part of its commitment to the scheme Circle IT will work with clients, which undergo IT refresh programmes, to establish if they will kindly donate old devices. Circle’s expert engineers will then refurbish the laptops before donating them to schools to help students with their studies. 
Chris Norman, Headteacher at Willows High School, said:
“We are so grateful to Circle IT for choosing our school to benefit from this generous donation. In a time of shrinking school budgets, it’s an impossible task to keep a school’s IT stock anywhere near up to date. This donation will enable us to better develop the digital competence of our pupils as well as providing them with a resource to aid their development into becoming independent and resilient learners.”
Roger continued:
”It’s fantastic that we have the support of our many clients to enable us to successfully run this scheme. We hope that the students of Willows High School can benefit hugely for many years to come.”
