Digital award a first in South Lanarkshire
First secondary in region to earn accolade
Larkhall Academy is the first secondary school in South Lanarkshire to receive a prestigious digital award.
The Digital Schools Award Scotland is a new national awards programme, which aims to promote, recognise and encourage a whole school approach to the use of digital technology in primary and secondary schools.
Ian Vosser, the Faculty Head of Digital Literacy and Enterprise, said: “Our whole staff team is completely focussed on giving all our learners educationally-rich digital experiences and they have worked tirelessly to ensure we are developing the right skills and qualities for their future careers.”
Digital literacy is weaving itself across every element of the school’s curriculum.
There are young people using a range of digital devices to conduct science experiments, undertake video analysis of sport performances, every first year learner has programmed their own digital device and young people are creating bespoke software packages to solve real world problems.
As well as using technology to support the teaching and learning happening across the school, there is also a focus in developing technical skills to ensure that jobs in mobile web development, big data, cyber security, digital business development, communication and digital marketing become accessible destinations for the young people when they leave school.
During the validation visit for the Digital Schools Award, the assessor Jen Mckay, got to experience the school’s digital culture.
She spoke to young people about how using voice typing and other literacy packages had allowed them to write stories and letters well beyond their language and spelling capabilities.
One S4 pupil explained: “I know all these words in my head but I can’t write them down on paper. Using the Chromebooks has allowed me to write things I couldn’t ever imagine writing before”.
There was also demonstrations by young people who were creating 3D atoms, working collaboratively on a writing challenge, undertaking digital music editing and demonstrating their computational thinking skills.
Andy Smith, headteacher at Larkhall Academy said: “There is some outstanding use of technology across the school and we hope to build on this further to improve learning for our young people.”
There is some outstanding use of technology across the school and we hope to build on this