Planning for the progressive development of pupils’ digital skills
Quick links:
- Information about the school/provider
- Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
- Description of nature of strategy or activity
- What impact has this work had on provision and outcomes for learners and/or their families?
- How have you shared your good practice within the school, sector or beyond?
Information about the school/provider
The Maelor School is an English-medium 11-18 mixed comprehensive school. The school is situated in the village of Penley to the southeast of Wrexham. There are 777 pupils on roll, including 103 in the sixth form. The percentage of pupils eligible for free school meals is 10.7%. The percentage of pupils with ALN (Additional Learning Needs) is 6%.
Context and background to the effective or innovative practice
The Maelor School places a strong emphasis on preparing pupils for life in an increasingly digital world. Following the introduction of the Digital Competence Framework (DCF), school leaders recognised the need to ensure that all pupils develop digital skills in a progressive and meaningful way. An initial audit highlighted that while some departments used digital tools creatively, provision was sometimes inconsistent. The school implemented a whole-school strategy to embed digital competence systematically, through authentic contexts.
Description of nature of strategy or activity
The Digital Competence Coordinator supports each department to create planning documents and progression ladders, detailing skill expectations at each stage. This ensures that digital learning is purposeful, cumulative and age appropriate. Each subject area is supported to develop digital opportunities which are relevant and authentic to the learning taking place within the subject.
Examples include:
- humanities – creating and interpreting infographics to present and analyse historic data
- science – using data analysis and spreadsheet tools to model results and trends of experimental data
- expressive arts – video editing, music production, and digital graphics design to enhance creative outcomes
- mathematics and numeracy – developing coding and logical reasoning skills to support problem-solving, pattern recognition, and data handling in mathematical contexts.
Each department has a nominated Digital Champion who collaborate with each other and with the digital coordinator. Regular meetings are held which provide opportunities to plan, develop and refine digital opportunities and to share good practice. In addition, Digital Champions provide digital support to departmental colleagues and leaders have provided beneficial professional learning opportunities for all staff. These include training sessions tailored to each subject’s digital focus, drop-in ‘digital surgery’ sessions and moderation of pupils’ work to ensure secure understanding of standards and consistency across subjects.
To ensure access and equity, the school uses its Hwb EdTech funding to purchase Chromebooks for each Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE). This investment ensures that all departments have the tools needed to deliver high-quality digital learning.
To celebrate and share the outcomes of this work, Digital Champions have developed exemplar portfolios and a whole-school Digital Portfolio. This portfolio serves as a resource for teachers, a platform for recognising pupil achievement, and a tool to demonstrate the school’s commitment to digital competence development.
Regular evaluation of digital tasks is undertaken to ensure tasks are appropriate. As a result, Digital Champions make regular refinements to their work which has resulted in progression ladders being more explicit and they have developed mini-skills checklists to support pupils to track their own progress.
What impact has this work had on provision and outcomes for learners and/or their families?
The initiative has led to measurable improvements in pupils’ digital competence and greater consistency across departments. Digital tasks are now embedded and purposeful. For example, year 9 infographics and multimedia projects demonstrate greater creativity, accuracy, and evaluative thinking. The proportion of Year 9 pupils achieving higher-level DCF descriptors such as ‘evaluate and refine digital content’ is increasing. In addition, pupil voice feedback indicates increased confidence and autonomy.
Staff surveys show that teacher confidence in embedding digital learning is increasing notably, following targeted support and collaboration with Digital Champions.
How have you shared your good practice within the school, sector or beyond?
The school’s approaches ensure that effective practice is well embedded across the school. The school’s Digital Competence Leader has shared this work with other school leaders and has been showcased at Local Authority Network meetings.