Stage 3 involved working with different departments to help them develop the DCF skills within their SOW. We decided to work as a skills team and work on Literacy, Numeracy and DCF with the departments in half day sessions. The headship team were really supportive with this and gave cover for departments to be able to meet with us as a skills team. This collaboration and strategic planning between Literacy, Numeracy and DCF leads has undoubtedly assisted in providing a consistent approach to skills development across the school.

STEP 1 - Meeting with departments face to face

We sat down with each department individually and looked through their current Schemes of Work.  By doing this we were able to make suggestions on how departments could implement digital skills into the lessons without them being an 'ADD ON'. By meeting together it also allowed us to talk through the ideas to make sure they were suitable and also that staff could ask questions about progression and the skill level that learners should be aiming for at different stages in the SOW. 

STEP 2 - Starting small

It would be too overwhelming to change every year groups scheme of work. By this point we focused on year 7 and 8, looking to expand to year 9 the following academic year. This continued to make it manageable for staff to work with. 

STEP 3 - Expectations set

We made it clear to staff that we were not expecting everything to be perfect and work straight away. We explained that this was a time for experimenting and exploring what works for their subject area and what doesn't. We would eventually look at the quality of the skills being taught and its progression, but that we wanted staff to get comfortable with implementing skills first without fear of judgement.

STEP 4 - Development

As the year developed, I would still meet up with departments or be available for any questions and/or suggestions that they had. During an INSET session, I then demonstrated good practice from each department as a way to showcase the progress we were making and also thank staff for all of their hard work in adjusting their SOW and exploring new skills that they may not have previously been familiar to them. 

Staff Training

This really helped me to know what training sessions to put on for staff. I held these during an occasional lunch time and I also utilised other staff who were confident in it and happy to teach other staff too. I put a small timetable together for short CPD sessions that staff could come along to during lunch breaks if they wished. These were not compulsory but uptake was very positive which was excellent. Some of the staff were really excited as they had wanted to develop their skills for a long time but were too afraid to ask, so this way they were able to come along when they wanted to. 

I tried to aim the training sessions at using different subject areas to demonstrate the skills - this helped to show how easily it can be integrated into their subjects. For example, when demonstrating SCRATCH coding, I used an example of two characters talking to each other in French and ordering food in a restaurant. The French department loved this so much, that they made it part of their curriculum to create an animation using SCRATCH coding and voice over technology to record the conversation in French between 2 characters. 

With the support of the headship team I was also able to offer HOD cover if they required it to up skill on certain areas with my support. This allowed them to go back to their departments and show potential subject specific skills implementations to other staff members also.