Two students from St Mary’s University College were among the six winners of this year’s “Fronter Ready To Go Rooms” competition organized by the Universities’ Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET NI) - C2k Liaison Group and sponsored by C2k and Capita Managed IT Services.

Rebecca Lydon and Clare Brazier, both BEd 4 Post-Primary Mathematics and Science students, were each awarded a HP Laptop at a showcase event held in Ulster University. Prizes were also awarded to students from Stranmillis and Queen’s University Belfast.


For the competition the students were required to create an interactive online course, called a “room”, within Fronter which could then be shared with other teachers. Fronter is the virtual learning environment (VLE) available to schools through C2K/Capita’s cloud-based learning portal MY-SCHOOL.


Rebecca’s created a room to teach Key Stage 3 Tranformations while Clare’s room was on the topic of Earth and Space. These rooms are now available for teacher to download in the Staff Library of C2K’s resource depository Equella.


At the event, all of the students displayed their “rooms” and explained their purpose and features to the other students and to their lecturers and representatives from C2K and Capita.

Speaking at the award ceremony, Shane O’Neill from C2K stated that C2k and Capita were delighted to be involved with the Higher Education institutions and praised the high standard of the rooms created by the students. He remarked that through the excellent work that the lecturers do with their students in initial teacher training, these students will be ideally placed to promote and embed eLearning in schools.

Mr Gerry Trainor, the Chair of the UCET(NI)-C2K Liaison Group remarked:

“This competition is another good example of the ongoing close collaboration that takes place between C2K and the Initial Teacher Education institutions. We thank C2K and Capita for their continued sponsorship. All the judges agreed that the standard was extremely high this year, and the winners, and also the students who were highly commended, have produced a bank of high-quality rooms to be shared with teachers through the Equella system. They should all be proud of their achievements. This is an example of student teachers leading the way and creating excellent online resources that teachers can download and use in their own classrooms. In some cases the students were able to use their rooms on school placement and help the staff develop their own use of Fronter.”