Developing Digital Skills

'We've designed our own digital skills curriculum mainly to inform teachers about what sort of skills children will need to develop as they go through each year group. So in reception, they learn the small things like being able to take a photograph, but the idea is that they develop that skill within the provision to support them. They showcase the nice things that they've done, and they want to show their parents that they're able to develop those skills alongside the other things that they're learning in the provision. But then when they move into year one, they've already got that foundational skills so that when they are required to take a photo, then they don't need to be learning that in that particular lesson. So say it was a science lesson, for example, so they've already got that knowledge behind them'

Cheryl Shirley
Director of Digital Skills & Computing
LEO Academy Trust

'I'm a Year 6 teacher, so when we get to Year 6, they would have had digital skills embedded from the early year foundation stage, from nursery up from reception and in Key Stage One and Two, and those skills are continually developed. So, when they come to Year 6, they can type extremely fast. And some of our research has shown that they can type faster than they can write. So that allows them more time to produce work and work collaboratively to get the best results for them'

Matt Clements
Teacher
LEO Academy Trust