Digital Education Strategy

Foreword

Deputy Inna Gardiner , Minister for Children and Education

A thriving digital industry is so important for Jersey's future, and for our next generation of islanders. Jersey's young people must be at the heart of shaping this future. I am therefore delighted to support the ambitious plans that are proposed in this strategy document.

As the Minister for Children and Education, I hope that all Jersey's schoolchildren can be inspired by the opportunities that future digital technologies can offer. We

must develop the digital skills for the future across our schools and wider education provision and ensure that every child has access to a dynamic, relevant,

and innovative learning experience.

This report provides several exciting recommendations that will build on Jersey's growing reputation for innovation and digital entrepreneurship. The foundational recommendation sets out a vision of collaboration and partnership between all stakeholder groups, all of which would be underpinned by a new island-wide Digital Learning Ecosystem.

The report has aligned with several key policy documents, including the Outline Economic Strategy for Jersey 2022 - 2040. I am especially pleased to see strong mention of the 2021 NASEN Independent Review of Inclusive Education and Early Years, since I am determined that our most vulnerable children and young people will have access to a future digital landscape that is inclusive to every Island citizen.

I very much look forward to working with the team at CYPES to transform this exciting vision for Digital Education into reality.

Rob Sainsbury, Interim Director General for Children, Young People, Education and Skills:

We want all young people in Jersey to be active digital citizens, with the confidence and skills to innovate and contribute to Jersey being a world leader in the digital economy. Employers understand that without a constant pipeline of digital talent, we cannot remain competitive. Our headteachers and teachers, employers, colleagues in higher education, and across the Government of Jersey have come together to co-design a strategy which is innovative, sustainable and which will meet the digital needs of all our community of learners.

Our strategy will help to create an enabling culture for digital excellence and guarantees digital skills and access are available to all island residents.

A truly digital Jersey will be more connected and integrated, with learners, citizens, communities, and businesses reaping the benefits. We see digital as not being about the technology but what we do with it, led by education- centred design, to make a difference to young people's lives.

Digital is about moving away from silo working to a culture of collaboration, with a focus on our learners and their needs. It is about working in an open way, sharing our data, information, and knowledge. It is about developing new skills, delivering great learner experiences, and working smartly to reduce our impact on the environment whilst delivering a world class service.

CONTENTS

1. Executive Summary
2. Recommendations: Rationale, Success Criteria & Actions
   1. Recommendations 1-3
   2. Recommendations 4-5
   3. Recommendation 6
   4. Recommendation 7
3. References
4. Appendix A Implementation Guide

1. Executive Summary

This Digital Education Strategy (DES) sets out Jersey's priorities and commitments for developing the best education for children and young people on the island. It builds upon the vision articulated by Government of Jersey (GoJ) for truly relevant digital skills to be part of every child's education journey.

The strategy itself is underpinned by the contributions of structured workshops and interviews with ten primary schools and eight secondary schools, as well as over 100 wider survey responses from leaders, teachers, and Learning Support staff. It therefore represents the spirit of co-operative support and co-production across the island's education landscape that will be a crucial factor in the design of the DES.

At the heart of the strategy is a fundamental call for a new and stronger partnership working model: a Digital Learning Ecosystem of interdependency and collaborative effort. Jersey currently has multiple points of delivery for digital skills development including key areas of excellence and innovation. The DES is intended to formalise existing partnerships into a new and fully collaborative ecosystem, where digital skills for the future are the focus of all activity, for learners, employers, the island economy and wider community.

Driving the Digital Learning Ecosystem will require the formation of a new operational body – the Jersey Association for Digital Education (JADE). A core purpose for JADE will be to provide a more specialist and bespoke support for schools, so they can deliver best digital education practice and shape successful digital pathways for all learners.

The JADE group will consist of representation from all key stakeholders, those in education and government, and those currently developing digital skills across workplaces and schools. JADE will not only provide a mechanism for driving forward learner-centred digital programmes within the curriculum but also widen opportunities for young people to experience and better understand future technologies and emerging career pathways.

In addition, JADE will support and enhance communications and operations within GoJ to ensure that Jersey schools have the secure and sustainable technology to deliver child-centred, personalised, and innovative experiences for learners.

The DES proposes that JADE will need strong leadership and recommends the appointment of an individual who recognises the breadth and depth of emerging technology and future skills requirements; who can support Jersey's strong employer networks to connect with schools; who understands the importance of a centralised and secure data service; and who also understands that Jersey's Digital Education Strategy must remain flexible and inclusive.

Above all this Digital Education Strategy is ambitious in its call for equity and inclusivity and sets out clear implementation pathways to create an enabling culture which guarantees digital skills and access for all Jersey's children and young people, their families, and all residents.

The strategy further sets out an innovative model – the Young Digital Citizen (YDC) - essentially a scheme of learning and minimum experience for all learners. The YDC will empower schools to support and enable all young people to be active digital citizens with the confidence and skills to innovate and contribute to Jersey being a world digital leader.

The YDC is proposed as a framework to benefit children and young people to acquire and build their own digital skills portfolio. It has the potential to unlock dynamic school collaboration, communities-of-practice sharing, teacher skills enrichment and industry engagement. YDC is presented as potentially instrumental in reducing the variability in quality of digital skills provision, raising skills and confidence, and establishing a baseline standard for digital skills which every child can be assessed against. It will further establish a clear curriculum mechanism for all employers to engage with schools for digital skills education.

To ensure that the YDC is fully inclusive and accessible, the DES proposes the creation of a Jersey Learning Hub – a digital platform ensuring a child-centred approach to leveraging the power of digital for connection, interaction, safeguarding and personalised support. The Hub would be a powerful statement of Jersey's ambition for closing the digital divide and providing each child with the means to achieve their potential in a digital world.

In summary:

This DES highlights Jersey's current multiple and disparate delivery points for digital skills, and instead, proposes a Digital Learning Ecosystem in which support and collaboration can become more structured and more effective. The mechanism to drive this is proposed as JADE. The DES further recommends two core projects emerging from Jersey's Digital Learning Ecosystem: The Young Digital Citizen curriculum, providing personalised child-centred digital skills development, greater industry engagement and enhanced inter-schools practice; and the Jersey Learning Hub – an inclusive digital platform for all learners ensuring equity of access and digital connectivity.

Together, these recommendations can establish a ground-breaking digital landscape, with greater consistency, greater collaboration and greater innovation for all schools and learners.

2. Recommendations Summary

2.1 RECOMMENDATIONS 1-3

Rationale:

This new 2022 DES expounds that "digital" goes beyond IT and should underpin a wider collective role in training the next generation of global citizens and leaders; educating the problem solvers, innovators, collaborators, and critical thinkers of the future. It requires a new orientation towards technology and wholly new ways for different agencies to work together. In this sense the DES really does become a strategy that not only encompasses all facets of mainstream education, but also connects seamlessly with industry upskilling and reskilling agendas. This means it is fully aligned to the Outline Economic Strategy for Jersey 2022 - 2040 and the ambition for Jersey to be a skills-led economy. Above all it is an inclusive DES from primary to HEI, covering the digital personal growth opportunity for all Jersey residents.

Such a collective role forms the ambitious backbone of the DES and sets out a new model of inter-agency working between schools and government and between schools themselves. It will need a paradigm shift in thinking for how best practice is disseminated and celebrated, how teachers are supported and upskilled, and how Jersey's response to the global digital landscape is to operate more effectively internally, supporting its community of pupils, students, and staff to deliver an education and training experience that will prepare all learners for a digital future.

This Strategy sets out a series of priorities to achieve this and highlights how current good practice can be furthered through a tighter formalised collective endeavour. Fundamentally, it calls for the formation of a new Digital Ecosystem, capable of combining the complexity of a child's journey through an education system (focused on personal "whole child" learning, growth, and safeguarding) with the imperative for relevant digital skills development for the digital economy and for future careers.

CYPES  Schools

Jersey Employer  Highlands

Group

Digital Jersey

M&D

Government of Jersey Skills Jersey

Jersey Telecom  Jersey Business

In addition, the GOJ vision to establish centralised schools IT standards and streamlined applications and services for better data governance and security enables the delivery of targeted, bespoke learning experiences by mitigating against variations across schools.

Digital Jersey continues to press forward with an outstanding short-course skills programme focused on Jersey's future as an Innovation Economy. However, schools are not currently taking full advantage of the breadth and depth of the offer and there is no significant mechanism in place to help them achieve this.

The Jersey Employer Group (JEG) has developed a Strategic Workforce Plan which sets out a clear vision for future- proofing the skills of the island's workforce and calls for greater collaboration with the Education Department. PWC's report Upskilling the Channel Island's Workforce for a Digital World, as well as its Labour Market Insight Report further reinforce the direction of travel. However, as yet there is no overarching mechanism in place to translate the vision into a programme that can migrate across all schools.

Several schools and colleges are moving assertively forward in their approach to "digital" by enriching technology skills acquisition with insight sessions and short programmes to capitalize on transferable skills and entrepreneurship. However, this is not yet a structured opportunity available for all schools and pupils.

As the focus of future digital networks evolves from connecting locations and mobile phones towards delivering an array of different applications and services, the opportunity to supercharge the digital learning ecosystem becomes wholly realistic. In this regard it becomes crucial to apply greater information and data sharing among stakeholders in the ecosystem, thereby driving forwards change, cost savings and process efficiency.

The transition in Jersey from an Education Department to the Department for Children Young People Education and Skills (CYPES) represents a journey towards holistic service delivery, and effective processes for supporting the best possible learning journey for each child from 3 to 19 years old. At the same time, a fundamental requirement of the M&D Department is to secure an integrated approach to data management, governance, and digital services, ensuring maximum service and data interoperability between public portfolios, driving efficiency, responsiveness and quality of service.

This contrast between the child-centred approach of CYPES and the system-centred approach of M&D represents, in many ways, a microcosm of the underlying challenge in developing a new Digital Learning Ecosystem and, therefore, a potentially natural starting point for DES ecosystem development. The challenge will be to balance the autonomy of a school with the requirement for centralized compliance and IT service.

To address this challenge, we believe a new body or working group needs to be created to function as the co- ordination and translation glue' for new partnership working.  

The aim of the group would be to support GoJ to establish a base-line technical and compliance model for all schools – a strategic operational benchmark model - and to support schools to understand and get best value from that model. A working title for the group could be JADE Group – Jersey Association for Digital Education - with Terms of Reference to support GoJ to achieve a baseline and standards for school hardware, infrastructure, building management, door entry, virtual services, CCTV, Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) and Microsoft SCCM.

1. RECOMMENDATIONS 1-3  Success Criteria & Actions:  

Recommendation 1. Establishing a Digital Learning Ecosystem

The foundational recommendation of Jersey's Digital Education Strategy is the requirement to formalise existing partnerships and organisations which are currently delivering skills and education into a new fully collaborative Digital Learning Ecosystem.

Success Criteria:

• Aligning all the digital education drivers and future activity and policy with the  Economic Strategy for Jersey 2022 - 2040

• Represent a firm continuity of strategic vision as set out in "Thinking Differently" 2015

• Provide an operational framework for sharing best practice and resource sharing

Recommendation 2. Create a catalyst to drive the Digital Learning Ecosystem

The Creation of a new 3-year working group – Jersey Association for Digital Education (JADE) - to catalyze the relationship between schools and e-government and to drive the ecosystem vision set out in Recommendation 1. The group would consist of key stakeholder representatives from schools, GOJ and Digital Jersey, with a minimum of 3 school digital champions.

Success Criteria:

• Supporting and driving partnerships and outputs within a new Digital Learning Ecosystem.

• Establishing guidance and facilitation management for schools and teachers' IT ticket requests

• Establishing an innovation sandbox for future technologies in school education

• Establishing opportunities for structured autonomy with individual school delivery

• Establishing a best practice content platform and guidance for teaching and learning

• Galvanising inter-schools' communication and sharing of data/resources.

Recommendation 3. Leading the catalyst  

Appoint a Digital Education Lead to define and oversee the DES against agreed KPIsincluding: leading on the Jersey Learning Hub(Recommendation 7), leading and delivering on the objectives of the new working group (Recommendation 2), shaping the school engagement work of Digital Jersey and digital employers, in general to lead and promote the ecosystem partnership agenda.

Success Criteria:

• Understanding the education landscape, and aligning the needs of e-government

• Understanding the innovation vision of Digital Jersey, enhancing, and embracing employer engagement

• All young people have access to opportunities to develop their digital technology skills and interests

• Relevant digital skills and industry trends are translated into distributed schools' programmes

• Connects Jersey's Digital Inclusion agenda through policy, implementation, and innovation.

Actions (Recommendations 1-3)

i. Recruit and appoint a Digital Education Lead with the role and person specification defined by the vision and challenge set out in the DES

ii. Establish Terms of Reference, membership, and Identity for the Working Group (JADE)

iii. Establish and agree priority objectives based on the identified success criteria:

bring together all the digital education organisations and drivers in Jersey and align future activity and policy with the Economic Strategy for Jersey 2022 - 2040

ensure continuity of strategic vision as set out in "Thinking Differently" 2015

establish an operational framework through which best practice and resource sharing can be coordinated and enhanced.

establish a clear gateway for all employers to engage with schools for digital skills education.

establish guidance and facilitation management for schools and teachers' IT ticket requests

establish an innovation sandbox for future technologies in school education

establish opportunities for structured autonomy in individual school delivery

establish best practice content platform and shared resources/guidance for teaching and learning

galvanise inter-schools' communication and sharing of data/resources.

iv. Launch a Jersey Digital Education Strategy Forum event to set out the vision for the Digital Learning Ecosystem and implementation plan for the priority objectives of JADE.

2. RECOMMENDATIONS 4-5

Rationale:

A Current State Assessment (CSA) of digital practice was completed with ten primary schools and eight secondary schools via structured visits, face to face interviews, and qualitative questionnaire methodology. Responses were added to and triangulated with over 100 quantitative survey responses received from leaders, teachers and LSAs from schools across the Island. Several key findings resulted from this process:

The digital curriculum including online safety

• Learner understanding of digital education beyond online safety is varied across schools. It is not always clear where these skills are taught - e.g. computing, PSHE, assemblies - or if it is up to date. Several schools are updating their policies and curricula in the light of learning from lockdown.

• All primary schools allocate an hour a week for computing with some flex for cross-curricular projects. Secondary schools allocate the same at KS3. Two secondary schools have added an additional hour of digital learning' to ensure the right digital skills are covered.

• All secondaries surveyed and interviewed have developed a sound curriculum at KS3 that supports pathways into a range of qualifications at KS4 including GCSE computer science, the iGCSE in IT and BTec qualifications. Many schools seek ways to encourage more girls into these qualification routes. Of the seven schools visited, none offer all learners a digital pathway at KS4.

• There are pockets of curriculum tech excellence in all schools and there are examples where digital champions have shared best practices across their school and between schools. However, it is not a systemic or routine activity across the service.

Careers education and digital industry experiences

• Only two career advisors were available for interview from the seven secondary schools visited.

• Four headteachers thought that digital careers advice and guidance needed further development to cement broader links with the digital/tech industry, and that the local, digital labour market information could be better communicated with learners, families, and schools.

Operational management

• All seventeen schools expressed dissatisfaction with the ICT change management process since the move to central services. Several Headteachers expressed the need to open communication with M&D to find a way forward in effectively meeting the needs of all learners.

• Two schools interviewed have developed exemplary pedagogical change management processes that support the development of quality teaching, answering the So what?' question by using communities of practice and robust lines of inquiry.

• The primary computing network is highly valued. Teachers wanted to expand on this provision to include cross- curricular digital support through subject networks, communicating a clear message that digital is not just about the discrete subject of computing.

• CPD in schools is three days per year. Previous island-wide training and CPD in technology is rarely

revisited. There was an expression of need for high-impact, time-light communities of practice, with robust lines of inquiry to be established for collaboration and sharing of best practice. This should include how learners with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) can be supported through application of specialist technologies.

Digital leadership

• Distributed, digital leadership in schools is varied; in some cases, it is limited to the school network manager. Where it was high priority for the Headteacher, or Digital Lead then change, and development was positive. However, it was recognised as fragile and prone to drop off quickly where key individuals leave or move school.

• Leaders openly expressed that their digital funding decisions were usually reactive and not tied to school improvement priorities or KPIs.

• Most teachers said they wanted to collaborate and share ideas and resources but are restricted in their ability to open up tech communication across centres via Teams groups and other settings.

Equality of access

• The school building estate varies from good to very good. Some primary schools, with Victorian, solid, granite-built structures, suffer from poor wi-fi/mobile reception. This impacts on guest access, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) systems and users generally experiencing patchy coverage, with not all learning spaces covered for the number of devices available or planned for use.

• Many schools continue to use iPads from the Thinking Differently' initiative which are now coming to the end of their lifetime, schools have proved the concept of effective blended learning, and are exploring the funding avenues for one-to-one devices.

Digital Inclusion

• We met a Learning Support Assistant at a secondary school who had mapped out the Jersey education system showing where a learner with additional needs fitted into this system'. She explained how schools rarely collaborate and share best practice: "We are all reinventing the wheel for children with the same additional need - which website, app or plug in can best support this pupil? How can we make the best use of digital to ensure these pupils are not further marginalised?"

• Several school leaders wanted to develop support for parents and the wider community with digital skills and safeguarding (including grandparents and youth workers) - in some cases building on the work they had started prior to, and during lockdown.

Summative Evaluation:

Our research and enquiry reveal a thematic disunity across the Jersey school estate in how "digital" is perceived, operationalised, delivered and assessed. There is, though, clear evidence of excellence in discrete areas of "digital" in a range of separate schools, with a clear need for consistency and equity in Digital Education for all learners.

The transition work of M&D to map and upgrade devices, hardware, networks, and school systems, as well as to manage centralised data to drive efficiencies and safeguarding, seems to cloud, from an educational perspective, the urgent here and now' needs of individual learners and schools.

Consequently, whilst Jersey's centralised approach is fundamentally the right approach, it remains an enduring challenge for schools to achieve a successful balance between centralised system-service delivery and structured technology autonomy for an innovative digital education delivery.

We found few schools able to articulate a clear, whole- school approach to using technology within teaching and learning to improve pupil outcomes: for many schools," digital" is not a priority in the school context.

What emerges from this landscape with highs of autonomous good practice and lows of mixed priorities or funding gaps, is an inconsistency at odds with the vision expressed in Thinking Differently 2013-16:

"The learning experience will be broadened and enhanced through a new form of curriculum,  fostering collaboration and developing partnerships with business"

Therefore, the proposal of the DES is to activate a vision for a new framework, a digital curriculum which all schools in Jersey can appropriate, adapt and develop to suit their digital needs for the benefit of children and young people.

This new framework should include not only a baseline for digital literacy, data safety, rights and responsibilities and preparation for active participation in a digital world, but also could include global perspectives, creative use of technology, career aspirations, specific digital skills attainment, interactions with industry and entrepreneurs, new technologies, and localised opportunities for work and life.

The Creation of a unique Young Digital Citizen (YDC) framework would enable schools to establish Digital Skills and Competencies and an annual accreditation of digital skills and knowledge for pupils, recorded via a personal, online learner portfolio.

It would function as a collaborative but centrally managed learning and curriculum hub through which best practice and resource is coordinated and enhanced for all users. It will lead to a more structured autonomy in individual school delivery, reducing the variability in quality, closing the digital divide, raising skills and confidence, and establishing a baseline standard for digital skills which every child can be assessed against. It will further establish a clear gateway for all employers to engage with schools for digital skills education

It can be best understood as the Jersey Curriculum for Digital: a scheme of learning and assessment which delivers on the core digital skills, agreed between educational practitioners and employers, that can meet the needs of individuals and future digital industry.

The Young Digital Citizen framework would be a visible example of a coordinated Digital Learning Ecosystem in Jersey.

2. RECOMMENDATIONS 4-5  

Success Criteria & Actions:  

Recommendation 4. Balancing system-focused standards with child-focused innovation

We recommend the development of a robust baseline education standards architecture for applications and technology in schools, containing a comprehensive asset map of existing hardware/software and mobile devices.

The baseline will provide a foundation upon which schools can innovate for delivery and target individualised provision for children.

Success criteria:

• Providing a consistent and streamlined vendor profile

• Economies of scale savings achieved with consolidated applications management and streamlined software licences

• School Wi-Fi upgrade/replacement

• Consolidation of on-premises servers for streamlined central configuration management

• Security of data sharing between schools

Recommendation 5. Young Digital Citizen

The creation of the "Young Digital Citizen" (YDC) as a Digital Pedagogy framework or wrapper' for digital education in schools. The YDC would be linked to school curriculum, encompass existing digital citizenship activity, and incorporate the unique economic drivers for the island. Over time the YDC would enable a pan-Jersey strategic digital education offer for all schools, customized to each school and the complex needs of learners.

Success Criteria:

• Establishes an annual benchmark assessment of digital skills and knowledge

• Provides an inclusive online digital skills portfolio of content and evidence for learners

• Allows access to industry activities via the ecosystem

• Links digital to an updated Jersey Schools Review Framework

• Shapes teacher training delivery and inter-school best practice/resource sharing

• Develops personal resilience, safeguarding, and entrepreneurship skills for confident digital citizens

Other proposals

• A Digital Champion in every school

• A revised Jersey Schools Review Framework and a Digital Leader in every school

• Digital training roll out for all Newly- Qualified Teachers (NQTs), linked to the UK Digital Champions Communities of Practice

• Industry engagement scheme with direct learner and teacher engagement in the digital workplace

Actions (Recommendations 4-5)

1. Position standard architecture development as a priority of the JADE group with a focus on key success criteria
2. Present the new schools architecture plan at a DES Launch Forum
3. Establish JADE group as the communications channel for development and change management
4. Establish protocol and processes for innovation in schools outside of the architecture standard

3. RECOMMENDATION 6

Rationale:

The Government of Jersey has a stated aim to "put children first", as set out in its Children and Young People's Plan 2019 - 2023. Within that ambition there is a recognition that education holds a pivotal position and that there are marked disparities in equity of educational provision and outcomes for children and young people across the Island.

Jersey's Independent School Funding Review (due out in November 2022) aims to address disparities at a funding level, and the NASEN International Independent Review of Inclusive Education and Early Years (2021) sets out a range of recommendations for system and process improvement in the journey toward a "whole inclusion" vision for schools, as a mechanism to improve life chances for all children.

Collectively, these strategic documents present a fundamental aspiration in Jersey towards equitable access of provision and a desire to deliver the best education and safeguarding experience to all children.

This DES is intended to build upon these policy directives and recommendations through the specific lens of "digital." What is clear is that Jersey's holistic approach towards putting children first begins to fragment in a digital space or becomes blurred by an imperative to adopt discrete digital solutions and services tailored to the here and now' needs of individual education institutions.

In the UK, Education policy is dominated by EdTech, across two broad areas:

• how schools use technology to enhance management systems and performance data monitoring.

• how schools use technology to manage online interactions, forms, tests, revision, and remote learning

[Future Opportunities for Education Technology in England DfE]

We find the picture in Jersey to be not dissimilar, with most schools organizing discrete digital solutions through necessity and, despite the solidity of the GoJ unified vision for all children and young people, operating independently when it comes to digital.

Consequently, the Jersey DES places a priority on digital ecosystem development as a core strategic plan and puts forward that a Digital Inclusion agenda within that ecosystem will enhance and accelerate the wider opportunities for inclusivity, equity and positive outcomes across all schools.

Digital Inclusion can mean many different things: access to broadband; access to devices and, significantly, access to basic digital skills to be able to function in a digital world. The UK Essential Digital Skills Framework sets out five categories for digital skills for life: Communicating; handling information and content; transacting; problem-solving; being safe and legal on-line. [DCMS 2019]

However, recent studies are revealing that digital exclusion can be even further nuanced with evidence to demonstrate that young people, particularly across a less affluent demographic, who are heavy users of social media platforms, experience a narrowing in their ability to explore the benefits of digital for future economic advantage (DCMS Prof Simeon Yates).

The emerging complexity of digital technology and its positive or negative effects on young people adds to the urgency to develop a Digital Inclusion strategy within the DES that seeks to open up access and equity while also offering a potential blueprint for a comprehensive approach, not only across the school estate but also across the skills economy of Jersey, powered by the Young Digital Citizen agenda.

For schools in Jersey the DES will bring to the forefront the important role of "digital" in ensuring that the recommendations within the Nasen Review are met. Complex needs and vulnerabilities can be further marginalized by standardised central IT processes, so it is crucial that the new partnership recommendation and ecosystem development is able to accommodate a co-creation methodology for supporting inclusion delivery.

In addition, the Nasen Review and recommendation for a continuum approach towards "whole inclusion" would be greatly enhanced and accelerated by the appointment of a digital SENCO, who could not only help drive a digital agenda but develop a framework for inclusive practice within the Jersey School Review process.

3. RECOMMENDATION 6

Recommendation 6. Digital Inclusion

Jersey's Digital Education Strategy (DES) to provide a digital lens' for pragmatic digital solutions to further support the recommendations of the NASEN Review of Inclusive Education and Early Years (2021).

Success Criteria:

• Appointment of a Digital Inclusion Lead and Digital Community Worker (youth) will further accelerate the recommendations of the Nasen Review, namely Recommendations 16, 18, 24, 26, 29, 34, 35, 36, 41, 42, 43, 46-48.

• Complex needs and vulnerabilities are not marginalised by standardised central IT processes.

• An Ecosystem working group and Digital Inclusion Lead will support Jersey's Children in a Digital World' objectives, for greater integration with families and carers

Actions (Recommendation 6)

1. Appointment of a Digital Inclusion Lead and Digital Community Youth Worker to apply and accelerate the recommendations of the Nasen Review. The Digital Inclusion Lead would sit within the CYPES advisory team and would identify, test, and evaluate the use of a common set of inclusive tools - both software and hardware - to provide accessibility for targeted learners.
2. Set up a Digital Learning Ecosystem Working Group, to assess and monitor complex needs and vulnerabilities, in relation to digital. These would include:

• Cognitive disabilities

• Physical and/or sensorial impairments

• Specific and non-specific learning difficulties

• Communicationand non-verbal

• Cultural/linguistic heritage – Multi-lingual

• Hard to reach/school refusers

• Neurodiversity

3. The Ecosystem working group and Digital Inclusion Lead to address the key objectives of the Children in a Digital World' report for greater integration with families and carers.

4. RECOMMENDATION 7 Rationale:

ACE gathered findings from a sample of 25 industry stakeholders including large employers, industry associations, entrepreneurs, Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) and Digital Jersey personnel. For our on-island work we were kindly supported by Digital Jersey, who provided access to key people and a central location and environment to engage with interviews and discussions. This very process alone signalled close networks and a sense of community amongst employers and stakeholders on the island.

The deep dive into the digital industry landscape of Jersey provided an insight into how the sector interacts with schools and the education system. The Jersey Government Common Strategic Policy 2018-2022 places a priority on creating "a skilled local workforce for the future" so the Digital Education Strategy must reflect that future-facing ambition. What began to emerge from our research was a degree of consensus across industry sectors about what was needed for the economy of Jersey, and this was articulated across a range of overlapping themes, including:

• Addressing productivity performance by focusing on low-impact high-value solutions. For example, using machine learning to drive new models of efficiency and output without having to import labour or increase the population

• Addressing the dependency ratio in Jersey's ageing population by innovating and upskilling for a "Silver Economy"

• Supporting Jersey's SMEs to become fully digital through targeted upskilling and funding for transformation

• Supporting the drive for Jersey to become an innovation hub or centre for future research and development

Such a consensus - that Jersey's economic future resides in its ability to develop a digital, knowledge-based ecosystem - brought into full focus one of the Island's significant strengths, in that it is already a highly networked economy of industry and employer partnerships. This was a vital marker for informing the DES.

However, in contrast to the solidity of this consensus, was a fragmented view of how mainstream education could respond, interact with employers, and address the talent pipeline that will be required. What emerged were contrasting views of what constituted "digital skills" and what should be taught in schools, some of which are highlighted below:

• It was felt by several interviewees that "our school system" is not educating for Jersey's future as a high productivity innovation R&D economy. Several mentioned the need to be teaching "Tech for Productivity" but were unable to articulate what that might look like in the classroom.

• Retaining talent - There was an expressed need to develop Higher Education Institution (HEI) with education/training and apprenticeship pathways that encouraged young people not to migrate to UK mainland Universities.

• Need to mandate "practical" digital skills such as managing CRM systems and databases. Pragmatic digital literacy was felt lacking in schools – "kids can code but can't do the fundamentals."

• Targeted upskilling programmes now operating across businesses and through the Digital Jersey Academy need to be replicated in the school system.

• Several employer groups felt there was an over-emphasis on cyber-security skills and that this was diluting opportunities for wider innovation and talent development.

• Several interviewees made the point that most schools in Jersey are open to employer engagement and project work but find it very difficult to sustain given the pressures of core curriculum delivery.

• Six of those interviewed felt that the digital skills focus on Jersey should be on teachers; that teachers need to be supported and upskilled with technology, to deliver inspiring digital experience to learners.

• Two SMEs felt that teaching coding in schools was not relevant to the Jersey economy and that the focus should be on working with applied machine learning – problem solving and data analysis for real-world issues and business drivers.

Interview responses generally showed that employers see softer' skills as vital for an innovation economy – having positive attributes and attitude, being independent thinkers, problem-solvers, and resilient learners. Two organisations referenced that managing business relationships in a digital world requires a combination of tech skills and emotional intelligence and, to achieve this, they felt that schools need to create capacity for young people to make mistakes through employer-led projects to help them develop into innovative thinkers not hampered by fear of failure.

These responses reinforce our core recommendation for the formation of the JADE group, to help translate identified industry ideas and skills needs into sustainable and distributed school programmes and activities. Fundamentally the JADE mechanism would also help schools to take advantage of employer network opportunities, offering exposure to economy-relevant transferable skills and wider inclusive opportunities for all children including girls and SEND learners.

One such example is the Design Engineer Construct (DEC) programme, an initiative driven by Skills Jersey for GoJ, in partnership with key industry colleagues from the built environment sector. The modern face of the built environment as an integrated problem-solving enterprise is very much communicated in schools through the delivery of the DEC qualification for Level 2 and Level 3 student cohorts. The course content from UK owners Class Of Your Own (COYO) is delivered by teachers working alongside industry specialists in the classroom to provide a school-centric programme which embeds social value and personal empowerment to young people, and is transforming the way an industry sector can interface with schools across Jersey.

Starting with 22 students in 2018 as an extra-curricular activity, DEC is now accessed by 150 students in their GCSE and A-Level years, and 500+ younger learners in Key Stage 3. Eight of ten possible school and college centres are now providing DEC to their students and a full career pathway into the Built Environment profession is emerging for students without having to leave the Island.

The DEC programme represents a success story in blending the "child first" priority of Jersey's Government, and CYPES, with the island's economic drivers to create a programme that means something tangible to children, teachers and employers; it is the sort of template and methodology that a JADE group could replicate, drive, share and accelerate across other sectors and specialisms.

A further example of a strong cultural connection between student-centred empowerment and relevant digital skills development is the emerging Future Skills Framework at Highlands College. The intention is to explore next- generation technologies such as machine learning, internet of things and immersive tech alongside industry specialists. Highlands have also set up tech sandboxes where students can break' networks and develop skills in a heuristic approach to learning. Highlands is also the meeting place for informal network meetings of teachers engaged in IT and computer network management to share best practice.

The autonomy that Highlands enjoys - to be able to design its student offer around relevance to their digital future - is a further pointer to how a JADE group could support GOJ to balance risk and reward in supporting good governance and systems-management across the school estate, whilst enabling innovation, experimentation, and positive student outcomes in the development of relevant digital skills alongside industry partners.

Jersey's intrinsic constraints as a small-island economy mean that it does not have a large talent pool as a hopper' able to channel unlimited capabilities into its digital economy. Instead, it must work smarter and strategically to fashion a direction of travel for economic growth based on its digital innovation credentials; its focus on upskilling and reskilling all ages; and an outward facing international vision. Digital Jersey (DJ) and Jersey Employer Group (JEG) have clearly played a central role in shaping this vision and operationalising this direction of travel.

As the economic development agency dedicated to driving the success and growth of the digital sector in Jersey, Digital Jersey is pivotal in establishing the island as a global innovation hub, and establishing the building blocks of its future economy, underpinned by digital transformation, world-class infrastructure, and future R&D.

The creation of the JADE group to interface government and employer groups with the education system would accelerate Digital Jersey's work and enable it to permeate into the education system, whilst addressing:

• A requirement for greater partnership working and sharing of best practice

• The urgent need for fluid and iterative managed mechanism for engaging with schools

• The development of wider interpretations of "digital" beyond ICT

• The importance of a digital skills agenda focused on Jersey economy

• The crucial role of Digital Jersey in this complex mix

Digital Jersey is vitally focused on the creation of a "future fit workforce" and its new funding envelope - and ambitious programme for innovation and skills development - will further enhance the digital tech economy of the Island. The development of a JADE group will support DJ to translate their key post-16 opportunities into school- centred programmes, building also on the work of the Digital Jersey Academy. It will create capacity in the ecosystem for the creation of projects and future skills, building on the foundational templates of programmes such as DEC.

Such interaction will further align Jersey's DES with coordinated and centrally managed industry programmes which in the long term will enhance Digital Jersey's plan for the digital economy, and Jersey's international position as a global tech innovator.

An opportunity therefore exists to develop a platform project with schools that could begin to bridge the gap between the employer skills networks targeted at the future evolving digital economic landscape in Jersey, and core curriculum work across the Island's education system.

The essence of the project would be to offer every child in the project access to a digital learning platform.

The Jersey Learning Hub would enable students to connect with their core school studies and activities seamlessly and pervasively, and to interface with teacher material and homework whilst also being exposed to relevant future digital skills opportunities.

Such a platform would have three cogent objectives:

1. To be a visible mechanism for real world education inclusion for children and young people in Jersey ensuring a child-centred approach to leveraging the power of digital for connection, interaction, safeguarding and personalised support
2. To function as a kickstart vehicle for Young Digital Citizen activity and a potential future platform for pan-Island YDC work across and between schools
3. To be a gateway for sector specific digital skills development, awareness raising and signposting for pupils and teachers

2.4   RECOMMENDATION 7

Recommendation 7. Bridging the gap

To establish the Jersey Learning Hub platform as a ground-breaking Digital Inclusion project in Jersey.

The Hub will aim to bridge the gap between the digital skills required for Jersey's future economy and the core curriculum in Jersey's schools. The intention would be for the Hub to evolve, within 2-3 years, into a dynamic platform tool subsuming a range of activities emerging from Young Digital Citizen work across schools, as well as linking children and young people to future digital skills opportunities and successful career programmes such as DEC. The Hub would be an identifier of partnership working in Jersey, of a Digital Learning Ecosystem in action and of a ground-breaking ambition to deliver a child-centred inclusive digital education.

Success Criteria:

• Establishing a secure Jersey Hub platform to extend learning beyond the classroom

• Establishing a connectivity plan for those most in need

• Developing the Hub as a gateway for wider industry engagement for future skills development

• Evolving the Hub as a dynamic Young Digital Citizen portfolio platform

• Retain more students on local-based digital career pathways.

• Coordinate and align the engagement of employer groups with schools supporting Young Digital Citizen portfolio work

Actions (Recommendation 7)

1. Appointment of a working group, to scope out the initial content and interface for the platform.
2. Appointment of a design team to develop an initial platform, in partnership with GOJ, and to agree timelines for project and functionality testing.
3. CYPES teams to consider a device distribution plan for learners, to support an initial platform launch.
4. Project plan emerging from JADE Group to develop the Hub as a natural home for Young Digital Citizen.

3  REFERENCES

Education, Sport and IT Vision for IT in Education 2013 Thinking Differently Vision for IT in Education 2013 - 2015 'Thinking Differently' (gov.je)

Children and Young People's Plan 2019-23. Putting Children First: The plan for Jersey's children, young people and their families

https://www.gov.je/SiteCollectionDocuments/Caring and support/ID Children and Young People Plan 2019 to 2023 EW.pdf

Nasen Review

Jersey inclusive education review published | Nasen

PWC Upskilling the Channel Islands'workforce for a digital world July 2022 Upskilling the Channel Islands' workforce for a digital world (pwc.com)

Children's Commissioner for England (2018) Who knows what about me? Reports | Children's Commissioner for England (childrenscommissioner.gov.uk)

Council of Europe (2019) Digital Citizenship Education Handbook 168093586f (coe.int)

Ribble, M., Bailey, G. (2007) Digital Citizenship in Schools, International Society for Technology in Education Digital Citizenship in Schools - Mike Ribble, Gerald D. Bailey - Google Books

Young Citizens (2021)

What is Citizenship? - Young Citizens

Levelling up through digital, computing and technology skills , growing the UK domestic talent base Levelling up through digital, computing and technology skills - ScaleUp Institute

Outline Economic Strategy for Jersey- A vision for 2040 https://www.gov.je/SiteCollectionDocuments/Industry and finance/P Outline Economic Strategy for Jersey.pdf

UK Digital Poverty Evidence Review 2022

UK Digital Poverty Evidence Review 2022 - Digital Poverty Alliance

Future opportunities for education technology in England

Future opportunities for education technology in England (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Jersey Employer Group Strategic Workforce Plan https://www.gov.je/SiteCollectionDocuments/Working%20in%20Jersey/JEGStrategicWorkforcePlanFinal.pdf

UK Digital Champions programme About Us | Digital Champions

UK Essential Digital Skills Framework

Essential digital skills framework - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

3  REFERENCES

DCMS Professor Simon Yates

New analysis of Ofcom 2020 data - Good Things Foundation

Jersey's Children in a Digital World report Children and the Digital World (gov.je)

GoJ Common Strategic Policy

Common Strategic Policy 2018 to 2022 (gov.je)

4  APPENDIX A IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE

NB: The table below provides a list of suggested actions and activities that might be undertaken to deliver on the key recommendations in this report. The Government of Jersey will consider these as part of a commitment to commence an agreed and fully funded implementation plan during 2023.