The learning environment is an ever-changing thing.

The classrooms where I learned to read and write are very different to the ones in which my children were taught.

The learning spaces at Headington today are a world apart again.

One of the biggest changes is the explosion of digital technology and the increasing ways in which it can be used to aid learning.

Like all good schools, we have well-equipped classrooms with interactive whiteboards, lots of computer rooms and dozens of online resources.

That, in our view, is not enough.

The world is changing around us and our girls will be taking up jobs which don’t exist yet – we have to prepare them for a job marketplace we don’t know and don’t understand.

This means we need to be really embracing the latest technology, testing its limits and finding exciting ways to take advantage of what’s out there.

This year, to enable our pupils to become more independent in their learning and to extend what is currently possible both inside and outside the classroom, we have taken the decision to provide year nine girls with their own iPad with a view to rolling it out from Year 7 to 11 in September.

This is not just about having something ‘smart’ to take notes on – teachers have been using creative and innovative ways to incorporate one-to-one iPads into their lessons.

Our modern languages pupils have been practising vocabulary and making videos with dialogues in French.

As the iPads become embedded into the curriculum, we will see them used in more and more exciting ways.

Girls can request any app to be added to our customised app store but each request will be considered by staff before a decision is made on its suitability.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

Our new library – opened to girls last month – has seen a shift from mainly print supported by digital to mainly digital supported by print.

As well as an online library of databases, subscription publications and research materials which we have been building on for a number of years, we now have an e-library where girls can digitally borrow books which are automatically returned on their due date.

They can log on anywhere in the world to do so.

Our staff have custom-built an interactive table complete with an 84” 4G touchscreen.

This allows groups of girls to open multiple windows, show and swap what they are working on with each other and research collaboratively. We also have two smaller 32” interactive tables for perhaps a pair of girls to work around, along with another wall-mounted 84” screen for class sessions.

Each of these can deal with 10 individual touches at any one time.

We will eventually be moving from our existing projectors and interactive white boards to these interactive touch screens in all our classrooms.

We teach computing to girls starting in the prep school, introducing them to concepts and careers unimaginable in my own childhood.

These young girls are learning to code soon after they have mastered the basics of reading and writing.

Once they reach the senior school they are taught computing and computer science – how to build and programme robots but also the ‘computational thinking’ behind it. Our Aldebaran Robotics humanoid robot, christened NAOmi by the girls, is one of the many ways we have been getting girls to take the lead with this exciting new technology.

One group of girls programmed NAOmi to respond in Shakespearean insults, another has been working on an app to help autistic children with body awareness.

NAOmi has even led dance classes.

Our computing department is filled with an abundance of the latest technology, from Raspberry Pis to Microbits, from an Ohbot programmed to be an electronic exam invigilator to a 3D printer.

This is not technology just for the sake of it – girls are involved every step of the way. Nor are they just tools to make our life easier.

The skills of computational thinking are a huge advantage whatever field you go into – how to think logically, how to break problems down and identify what’s relevant, then apply them in real life situations.

In ten years time – in fact perhaps even in as little as two years time – all of this will have changed again.

We cannot predict exactly how – all we can do is try and keep pace, assess what will make a real difference inside or outside the classroom and take advantage of the best tools of the trade while rejecting gadgets for gadgets sake.