The first task we needed to undertake was a Skills Audit. I felt this was important as we needed to know as a School what skills were already being taught across the curriculum and to what level. 

To do this, I asked Heads of Department to add to their section of the spreadsheet the skills they were covering in their lessons. At this stage I did not ask for an example or how they were being met, as this would come later in a work scrutiny exercise where I could judge if the skill was being met or not and if it was at the appropriate level.  

This was a positive experience as I was able to demonstrate to staff that on the whole they were already incorporating many of the skills required. Obviously these skills needed further consideration in terms of progression and potential for further inclusion of additional skills. but by showing staff how the skills already fit seamlessly into the curriculum was a motivator to them for the next stage of development. 

The outcome of our skills audit was as I expected, with certain departments having a lot more skills coverage than others due to the nature of their subject. By completing this audit I was able to see which skills were not being covered across the school curriculum and this would be key to a starting point for us to work with. 

Below is a summary of the first skills audit that we completed (this was completed prior to implementing an AoLE model). As you can see there were skills that were not covered by any subjects across the school (including ICT) and then some skills were thriving with multiple occurrences. This information was invaluable to me as it helped me to see where improvement was required and where to celebrate successes with staff. 

At this point, I wanted to conduct a work review to see the skills in action. This had an impact on the previous skills audit as I quickly noticed that not all staff had a secure understanding the appropriate level of skill required. E.g. writing an essay in a word document on it's own is not effective evidence of the Producing strand, learners needed to be using tools to improve/enhance their digital work.  This made us aware of staff professional learning that was required to assist in moving forward our digital strategy. 

Similarly, there were some skills not identified by the HOD as they were unaware of some skills. E.g. Research. The only element that they were missing is the referencing and reliability of the source, so this would be a simple adjustment to their lesson and would improve the pupils skills. 

After doing this exercise, I amended the skills audit to show a 'true' reflection of the skills. I was also able to link evidence by taking pictures or saving copies of pupil work. It was important after completing this exercise to feedback my findings to the Leadership team in order to ensure a holistic plan of action moving forward. 

During an inset session I was asked to give a short presentation on the findings of the skills audit and work scrutiny. My goal at this stage was to be as positive as possible as I did not want to add pressure to staff or give them a negative view of the DCF as just another 'thing' they are forced to teach. 

I wanted to show how well they were already doing, make quick and easy suggestions of how they could include basic skills in their Year 7 lessons and also stress that I want them to focus on YEAR 7 only for this academic year and we would introduce other year groups further down the line. 

I also discussed the staff questionnaire that I would be sending out. Again, I stressed that this would not be used to see who could or couldn't do something, I just wanted to know how I could support them to improve their CPD and more importantly confidence in teaching the basic digital skills. 

Survey Findings

The survey showed that a lot of staff were confident in presentation skills and word documents but spreadsheets, flow charts and searching techniques were areas that required support.  

Below is a snapshot of the initial findings: