CELEBRATIONS were in order for Kilcreggan Primary, after it achieved a Digital Schools Award for its work embedding digital technology in teaching and learning.

The Digital Schools Award is a national awards scheme to promote, recognise and encourage a whole school approach to the use of digital technology in schools.

During lockdown, staff at Kilcreggan worked hard to make teaching and learning as engaging and interesting as possible through the creative use of technology.

When lockdown was over, and schools began to return to normal, the school decided to build on this new knowledge by fully embedding the best use of technology and developing new strategies, such as digital numeracy homework in the upper school.

Argyll and Bute Council’s policy lead for education, Councillor Yvonne McNeilly, said: “Staff, pupils and parents at Kilcreggan are to be congratulated on their hard work and efforts to expand digital practice across the school community.

“The Digital Schools Award is a prestigious title and Kilcreggan is playing a key part in helping our children and young people to prepare for living and working in the 21st Century through digitally enhanced learning.”

Over the past 12 months, the school continued to pursue its digital practice and carried out a consultation to gain feedback from staff, parents, pupils and the wider educational community.

It used the evidence gathered to benchmark its practice against the Scottish Digital Schools Award indicators and national policy. This allowed staff to identify any gaps and areas for development.

Digital technologies have very much become part of the culture of the school, and pupils have taken on leadership roles as trainers and experts by becoming Digital Leaders. The school has improved home school links through the continued use of Seesaw in the P1-3 classes and the development of digital learning logs in P4-7. The school is continuing its journey this year with the development of cyber resilience and internet safety.

That will culminate in a submission for the Digital Schools new Digital Wellbeing

Badge.