During the first stage you will need to gather information about the current situation in your school in order to determine your current position from which you will identify key areas for improvement.  

Aims:

• To gain an understanding of the school’s current provision and standards of digital competence.

• To identify the barriers and enablers that contribute to this.

Important considerations:

• Which teachers / departments are already demonstrating effective practice?

• How broad are the experiences currently offered?

• Which teachers / departments require significant support?

• Are there any consistent factors e.g. use of learning platforms or storage? 

• What is the current deployment model for devices such as fixed, mobile etc. and is it working?

• Is there a relationship between the skills taught through IT lessons and the cross-curricular application of these skills?

Possible actions:

• Staff skills audit.

• Complete 360 Digi Cymru review.

• Work scrutiny.

• Planning review.

• Discussions with staff members.

During this stage you will identify what you’ll be initially be aiming towards in terms of provision of digital competence experiences for learners. You will now form your strategy to form the foundation for the next stages.  

Aims:

• To identify a baseline of experiences the school will provide that facilitate learner progression in the digital competencies.

• To create a clear plan for implementation.

Important considerations:

• How many tasks will the school expect pupils to undertake in each of the digital competence strands at each progression step? This needs to be ambitious but also achievable.

• What will be the non-negotiable aspects of digital learning in your school e.g. learning platforms, storage, planning methods?

• What will you see in 3 months / 6 months / 12 months / 18 months that shows you the school is progressing towards the goals set?

• How will you develop the learners’ skills to allow application in cross-curricular contexts e.g. discreet / hybrid / integrated skills model?

Possible actions:

• Create an experience profile to identify a baseline of experiences that reflects your school’s vision.

• Agree the experience profile with SLT.

• Create a strategic plan for implementation.

• Identify milestones / success indicators.

• Create a strategy document.

During this stage you will start to put your strategy into practice on a controlled scale. The purpose of this is to gain vital examples to drive progress in stage 5 and also to test your procedures and structures.

Aims:

• To start implementing your strategy on a small scale.

• To establish robust procedures and identify a leadership structure to enable successful implementation.

Important considerations:

• Which will be the best teachers / departments to help you exemplify your strategy? 

• What method will you use to gather ideas from teachers / departments to fill the experience profile? 

• How will you ensure that the tasks accepted into the experience profile are high quality? How can you work with teachers / departments to develop ideas?

• How will you begin to support the teachers / departments that will need the most input / development? 

• Which aspects of digital competence have natural development opportunities in which AoLE?

• How will you capture the coverage of digital competence tasks to ensure balance and breadth?

Possible actions:

• Work with your most advanced teachers / departments to exemplify how the strategy looks in practice.

• Form Q&A procedure to ensure high standards of planning and outcomes.

• Identify planning methods to gather ideas.

You have now tested your strategy on a small-scale. Before you work towards implementing this strategy on a larger scale you have the opportunity to review and change the procedures and processes that support the implementation.

Aims:

• To confirm that the strategy’s aims are realistic, achievable and ambitious.

• To ensure that the processes surrounding the implementation of the strategy are effective and efficient.

Important considerations:

• How successful was the small scale implementation in stage 3? 

• Do you need to adjust your strategic aims or expectations? 

• Are the processes involved in implementation simple enough for others to follow? 

• What worked effectively and what can you use to exemplify to the rest of the school? 

• Have you identified a structure for leadership and support that will allow implementation on a larger scale?

Possible actions:

• Gather feedback from practitioners who were involved in stage 3. 

• Review processes and evaluate progress.

• Amend strategy if necessary.

• Feedback to SLT / Governing body. 

You are now ready to move towards full implementation of your strategy. In order to achieve this you will need to scale up at a pace that will allow you to support departments and practitioners to successfully embed the strategy.

Aims:

• To support an increasing number of departments / practitioners to implement the strategy.

• Ensure quality and consistency in the provision of digital competence across AOLEs.

Important considerations:

• At what pace will you scale this towards whole school implementation? 

• What risks have you identified that could slow your progress? 

• Does the process of scaling up allow you to provide the required support for departments?

• How will you make sure that momentum is sustained in the departments that should already be implementing the strategy? 

• How will you report on progress to staff members? 

• How will you ensure that your monitoring, evaluation and review activities are aligned with this stage of the process and that they help you measure the impact of your strategy?

Possible actions:

• Map the school’s provision against the baseline expectation as set in the strategy.

• Organise supported planning sessions.

• Monitor progress through learning walks / work scrutiny exercises. 

You are now implementing this strategy throughout the whole school. The quality and consistency of authentic digital competence experiences has increased substantially. The challenge at this point is to build on the momentum and look for more ways to develop.

Aims:

• To maintain the level of accountability and expectation set in the strategy.

• To build on the maturity of this working model by addressing certain factors that will impact on standards.

Important considerations:

• To what extent has the school developed a culture of innovation? How can we develop this further? How can we impact the learners’ curiosity, creativity and problem-solving skills? 

• How can we improve the pedagogical approaches to digital learning, and how will this impact standards? Who can lead on this? 

• Do we need to adjust our expectations? Do we need to raise expectations / level of ambition?

• How can we broaden the experiences that we offer?

• To what extent does our provision of skills and experiences reflect real life situations? 

• To what extent can learners independently apply their skills in different contexts?

Possible actions:

• Include other practitioners in monitoring and evaluation processes.

• Target certain practitioners to develop a culture of innovation.

• Work with teaching and learning lead to improve understanding of pedagogy.