The Herefordshire Digital Leaders programme has been taken over by the Hereford iStore (Albion). Please contact them for information on how to get involved.

What’s a digital leader?

A digital leader is a KS2 pupil who is part of a digital leaders’ team within their school, their role is to support the use of technology, particularly iPads across the school. Schools participating in the Herefordshire Digital Leaders Programme are supported in various ways as they set up and support a digital leaders’ team. They do a variety of jobs including:

• Support the use of iPads and computers in school to support learning

• Share their skills and expertise with other pupils, classes and teachers.

• Assist teachers and other pupils in understanding coding applications.

• Set up equipment in classrooms for teachers.

• Update and monitor areas of the school website or school / class blog.

• Test and review new digital resources (websites, computer software, hardware or apps).

• Feed into whole school decisions about future development of technology.

• Lead lunchtime or after school computing / iPad clubs.

• Support teachers in using technology in the classroom.

• Run or contribute to parents’ meetings.

• Share expertise with other schools and at conferences.

• Have a good understanding of how to stay safe with technology and share that with others.

• Provide first line technical support in school.

• Be responsible for certain maintenance tasks with particular technology.

• Attend staff meetings to train staff.

• Create how-to video help guides.

• Attend training sessions when they are arranged both in and out of school.

How do I get started?

It’s best to advertise the posts in school and get children to apply, some schools then hold interviews and appoint their team. It all helps to add status to the role. Download the Getting Started pack below. it contains a lot of resources you can use to get up and running easily. When you’ve done that, book your team onto the next pupil conference.

Word Document (editable): HCS Digital Leaders Pack for teachers

PDF (may display better): HCS Digital Leaders Pack for teachers MS

How does the Herefordshire Digital Leaders Programme support schools?

We will support you and your digital leaders at all stages. Each of your digital leaders will feel a part of a county wide support network. Specifically, the programme:

• Provides you with the resources and documentation you need to get up and running.
• Supply you with badges for your digital leaders.
• Run a digital leaders induction day for new members of the team each summer term.
• Run workshop days for digital leaders on a termly and regional basis. Each has a published focus and you can attend as many as you wish.
• Welcome you and two of your digital leaders on any appropriate course that we run outside the programme.
• Provide a login to the Herefordshire Digital Leaders’ Blog for you and each member of your team where pupils (and teachers) can exchange ideas and request support.
• Support you in school (as required / requested) for specific projects / needs.

As usual, this programme is offered to all school that buy into our service level agreement as a part of our ongoing support. Non SLA schools can buy into the programme for one member of staff and 6 pupils at the rate of £200 per conference or all three terms for an annual cost of £450 per annum.

Here’s what the children have said about the first round of pupil conferences – 110 children from 14 schools came along.

“Today was very fun and I will try make a really big effort to help teachers and students with ICT Today was amazing you learn lots of new thing about digital leaders and learn about new apps and how to use them.”

“I had loads of fun and I have learnt a lot so it will be fun teaching the teachers and pupils how to do stuff. I thought it was really fun QR coding round the school.”

“Extremely helpful and motivating for the children to be effective digital leaders within our school. Great suggestions of apps and demos of technology. Today inspired the children to think about creative uses of iPads and augmented reality.”

“I thought that today was a really good day and really helped me learn a lot more about all the apps and how to stay safe on the internet. I would definitely love to do that again.”

“Today was great and I learnt a lot. It’s really fun learning about using different apps I have never used before. You can also meet other people from other school. It is really cool and fun.”

“Today was amazing and really interesting, it was really fun learning about all the apps and how they all work – Amazing!”

“By having the digital leader training it brings the school computing team together and develops their knowledge further.”

“It was great come here today and I’m really looking forward to next time Every school should do this, it will make you a genius at computers and it was so fun.”

And here is a link to the Digital Leaders’ blog which contains some of their ideas and the resources they created on the day.