Hampshire Collegiate SchoolSet in 130 acres of private park, including wild gardens and woodland, Hampshire Collegiate School was once the home of Florence Nightingale. Following an investment of over £15m in 2005, facilities on campus include a performing arts centre, a sports hall, science labs and ICT suites, tennis courts and an all-weather hockey facility. The Prep School and Nursery School are on the same site in separate, purpose-built accommodation and offer an exciting curriculum both inside and outside the classroom.

In May 2012 Hampshire Collegiate School purchased from Weather Front Ltd a Davis Vantage Pro2 weather station with WeatherLink USB data logger & software. Adding a leaf wetness/soil moisture station with soil moisture and soil temperature sensors completed the school’s requirements.

A Davis weather station was chosen rather than a domestic station for its professional quality. It is better constructed and a more robust station which was vital to the staff as the weather station is located in the middle of the school golf course. The Vantage Pro2 was decided upon after an online search and reading many reviews about the station and Weather Front Ltd. The station offered almost unlimited configuration options which are very important for learning at A2 Level.

The station was found to be straightforward to setup and use. A year 13 student who is applying to read meteorology at university installed and configured the station along with a governor of the school who is a Professor of Geography from Southampton University.

The Hampshire Collegiate School weather station is live 24/7 via their website, and the data is harvested, stored and backed up every day. So far several subject areas have benefited from the station including Geography and Biology and for pupils between Year’s 7 & 13. Academic staff have been very impressed with the equipment and the results that they are able to achieve with the pupils.

The school have found that the best thing about having their weather station is that pupils are able to work with live data. As pupils grow and develop they will be bombarded with ever increasing amounts of data – just as in everyday life. For them to be able to see how raw data can be processed into historical graphs and charts, as well as processed to give a future prediction is exposing them to a vital new set of life skills.

Hampshire Collegiate School are involved in the process of installing a further two stations within their school group.  This will provide weather data for three very different micro-climates for comparison. Once online all schools in the group will be able to benefit from the live data in their teaching.

The school found Weather Front Ltd staff very helpful in assisting with the few questions they had about the setup and configuration of the station, however commented that internet forums are a useful source of additional information and tips.