Teacher guest blog: Woodford County High School’s Digital Leaders experience

In April we were delighted to announce that the Childnet Digital Leaders Programme was named as one of the finalists in the Best Innovation category of the Internet Matters Digital Safety Awards and that the programme was shortlisted alongside 10 other finalists within the Charity Digital Leader of the Year Award (find out more and vote here!)

As this new training programme is recognised for its innovative approach, Rukiya Athman, a teacher from Woodford County High School, shares the impact the programme has had on the Digital Leaders and what the young people have planned in order to support other young people in the school. 

Woodford County High School has been fortunate to be a part of the Childnet digital leaders’ programme.

Our students have been completing the online training modules, which has equipped them with excellent knowledge of e-safety as well as enabled them to increase their confidence and leadership skills. We have seen how much the students have increased in confidence when speaking and listening in groups, as well as with their peers and teachers.

The students have particularly enjoyed the approach of completing a module in the session and then being able to discuss the issues/ topics as a group. This has really helped them consolidate their learning within a group context.  As the students work through the platform independently they are able to collect badges and earn points. The points are then displayed on the leader board where they can see how other schools have been performing compared to them.  Through the modules our Digital Leaders have been able to create some great resources which we have used in PSHCE for Safer Internet day. Pupils and teachers in the school commented on how formative these resources were and how pupils were engaged in their learning.

 As our Digital Leaders have now completed the modules online we are currently working on some inspiring ideas to support other young people in the school. Some examples are, the Digital Leaders dropping into PSHCE lessons to deliver 10 minute slots to do with social media accounts, viruses, geo-tagging as well as dealing with cyberbullying issues.