Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

Porthcawl Comprehensive School has 1,400 pupils and over 80 staff. Working with the Digital Competence Framework has been steady and progressive, starting in September 2016 with the school and faculty improvement plans.

Q: How did you begin to work with the Framework?

After building it into our planning, we started by identifying early wins – people who were already doing digital work – such as in science – who could share success stories.

We didn’t want to confuse people with the technical jargon because it was potentially frightening for some staff, so we had an inset day on Curriculum and rather than scare staff we looked at the big picture and showed the value that digital could bring through good examples. We started by looking at what was already being done and how we could take this forward, particularly focusing on the Producing strand in the first instance. Continue reading →

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

St Martin’s comprehensive school has 1000 pupils aged between 12 and 18. It took on the Digital Competence Framework by making ‘digital’ work for the whole school, including pastoral care and support for learners as well as across the curriculum.

Q: How did you begin to work with the Framework?

A: We saw it as bigger than curriculum. We wanted to use digital means for all sorts of school activity, so we decided to go totally ‘google’ and use their tools across the school. And we started early: we could see what was coming so started our planning in May 2015.

The senior team had to come on board first because we all had to take out the same message and approach. Then we met Heads of Faculty – who were positive – and did a staff audit of skills. There was some apprehension, but we’ve tried to overcome that by being as open and supportive as we can.

Q: So was it a culture shock for staff? Continue reading →

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

Our world is changing so quickly that we can barely imagine the implications for our adult futures, let alone those for our young people.

That’s why the Digital Competence Framework was prioritised and delivered early as part of the new curriculum. The need for pupils and teachers to be confident and succeed in our digital world was clear.

So it is part of our National mission to provide all our learners with high-level digital skills; digital competence is one of three curriculum responsibilities alongside literacy and numeracy within our new curriculum. Continue reading →

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

A central part of our National Mission is to give all our learners high level digital skills.

Digital Competence will be one of three cross curricular responsibilities in our new curriculum and it is important to get skills embedded now as we make the transition. So we have updated some key messages and provided new materials to support your work and make the DCF a focus for schools alongside Literacy and numeracy.

The DCF Guidance, ‘Your Questions Answered’, and the Presentation have all been updated. Meanwhile four new short animations explain the strands of the framework in simple terms.

See the resources on our Learning Wales page

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

The new Curriculum for Wales will comprise of Six Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs); here’s a visual interpretation of the design approach.

To download the image click here

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

Our new curriculum is on the way. It will offer teachers more freedom to teach in a way that best meets the needs of each of their pupils. At its heart it has the four purposes of education set out in ‘Successful Futures’

Learning will be organised in six ‘Areas of Learning and Experience’ (AoLEs) rather than narrow subject boundaries. Within these, statements of ‘what matters’ set out the most important knowledge, skills and experiences to be gained.

In line with ‘Successful Futures’, the Curriculum and its assessment arrangements will be built on Progression, so each AoLE will include progression steps. In this way learning and Progression go hand in hand, bringing a purposeful approach to sequencing learning. Continue reading →

Darllenwch y dudalen hon yn Gymraeg

The new Curriculum for Wales will comprise of Six Areas of Learning and Experience (AoLEs):

Expressive Arts;  Health and Well-being; Humanities;  Languages, Literacy and Communication;  Mathematics and Numeracy; Science and Technology.

But how do they connect to the four purposes set out in ‘Successful Futures’ and what do they comprise?

In this post we answer those questions, accepting that this is all still work in progress as development work continues into the Autumn. Continue reading →