Digital Community Learning and Development Award

A new Digital Community Learning and Development (CLD) Award is being developed following funding from the Scottish Government.

Due to be rolled out nationally in autumn 2022, the Digital CLD Award will seek to recognise the ways that CLD services and organisations promote effective use of digital technologies to enhance learning opportunities in youth work, adult learning, and community development programmes.

The award will focus on strengthening organisations’ skills across key areas, helping them to build their own, and their learners’, digital skills, digital literacies and strong digital wellbeing for cyber resilience and internet safety practices. It will take account of CLD policy and national guidance, and promote self-evaluation and reflective approaches, in line with HGIOCLD 4 (currently in draft).

The development of the programme is being led by the Digital Schools Awards, an organisation which was established to encourage a whole-school approach to the use of digital technology in the classroom. It is the first initiative of its kind in the sector to be delivered through a collaboration between education bodies and industry partners.

For the first time, it is set to engage with organisations throughout the community. It will seek to create a strong legacy of digital skills in the CLD sector by promoting and celebrating improvements in high-quality digital services and learning experiences, and supporting the growth of digitally talented young people and adults.

The award will be based around four key principles and designed to be:

• Policy-led and reflective for organisations and individuals.
• Inclusive, with an emphasis on inclusion and co-creation through the voice of learners so that digitally mature organisations can celebrate their achievements, and digitally developing organisations can use the framework as a road map for improvement.
• Encourage and support improvement by acting as a road map for organisations at all stages of their digital development.
• Sustainable through the support of a wide range of sectoral partners.

The programme is being shaped by a Development Group of specialist partners, including CLD Managers Scotland (CLDMS), CLD Standards Council, Community Development Alliance Scotland (CDAS), Education Scotland, Lead Scotland, Learning Link Scotland, Scotland’s Learning Partnership, Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), Youthlink and Youth Scotland. Alan Armstrong is leading the development for Digital Schools Awards Scotland.

About Digital School Awards (DSA)

Digital Schools is an independent organisation specialising in digital education programmes. Digital Schools operates the Digital Schools Awards and Awards4SELFIE education programmes to support ministries and schools to enhance digital education practices.

In 2015, Digital Schools backed by industry partners led by HP Inc., launched the Digital Schools Awards in Scotland and Ireland to provide teachers and school leaders in schools with opportunities to use digital technology and to enhance their digital competences and have these acknowledged. Over 3,900 schools are registered for the programme and 965k pupils from nursery through secondary level have been supported. 

Digital Schools is leading a consortium of ministries, industry and education partners from five countries (Ireland, Lithuania, Scotland, Serbia and Slovenia) in an EU Erasmus project to explore a new European Digital Schools Awards and demonstrate the potential to be sustainable in the participating countries and beyond.

In 2021, Digital Schools will lead a consortium from four countries to design, build and validate a practice sharing hub and mentor system focused on the development and dissemination of best practices in digital deployment. The Academy will facilitate the transfer of digital competence from digitally mature schools to those whose digital journey is less developed.

For enquiries email info@digitalschoolsawards.com.