The LEO Academy Trust consists of 6 schools across the London Borough of Sutton with 4,000 pupils and more than 400 staff members. They are a Department for Education Demonstrator School for their use of technology.
Canopy’s Workspace Skills package includes 34 interactive tutorials to help pupils and teachers learn by doing as they earn badges for each Google tool.
Background
Canopy and LEO Academy Trust have been collaborating for more than 2 years, providing training, support, and online tools. This has been a mutually beneficial partnership with digital leaders from across the schools in LEO Academy Trust, beta testing and providing feedback on Workspace Skills.
Challenge
LEO Academy Trust initially issued Chromebooks to all pupils in Year 4 and later rolled them out to all pupils across the trust, having seen the huge impact that 1:1 devices can have on teaching and learning. They needed to ensure that teachers and pupils made the best possible use of this technology to enhance teaching and learning. When the challenges of Covid-19 caused schools to close, this emphasized the importance of children having strong digital literacy skills to access and engage with online learning.
LEO’s Lead Teacher of Technology for Learning, Rachel Coathup, developed a digital passport to go alongside the trust’s computing curriculum. “Our digital passport starts with understanding and knowing their device, knowing their keyboard… and then builds into those core Workspace Skills; the Canopy digital skills really allow that growth for our pupils - to take what they already know about their device and extend that further.”
Solution
Canopy provided training to staff, including helping them to become Google Certified Educators and Trainers. We offered consultancy to the Executive Leadership Team to help them develop their understanding of the potential uses of digital technology and hybrid learning.
Workspace Skills
To enhance pupils’ digital literacy skills, we provided access to Workspace Skills, interactive tutorials, to pupils across the trust. The pupils earned micro badges for each tool in varying degrees of difficulty (bronze, silver, and gold levels) as well as overall badges (pictured below).
Summary
LEO Academy Trust is now recognised as a Department for Education (DfE) Demonstrator School for their exceptional and innovative use of Technology. In just the first few months of using Workspace Skills, pupils have earned thousands of badges for their Digital Passports. Pupils have learned by doing and can now transfer these digital skills to real-world applications.
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