In 2006 the EU recognised Digital Competence (DC) as one of the 8 key competences along with literacy and basic skills in science and maths. DC should not be confused with ICT skills rather the ability to apply ICT in a creative and/or critical way. This could be at home, in education, in social interaction, education and the world of work. There are 3 participating countries. Led by a local authority in each country, primary and secondary schools have been given the opportunity to participate. This project aims to upskill young people to prepare them for the world of work but also aims to offer targeted professional development opportunities for teachers and prepare them fully for the classroom and their own professional advancement. Coupled with this we aim to upskill parents and members of the wider community by actively involving them in the planned activities. We aim to meet the individual needs of participating countries whilst ensuring EU priorities are met.The European Commission Digital Competence in Practice document highlights that digital competence requires understanding in a number of fields. Digital Competence Frameworks around Europe have adopted these areas and through this project we will discover practical ways of implementation. The DC fields of focus are: Information management -Collaboration -Communication and sharing -Creation of content & knowledge -Ethics & Responsibility -Evaluation & Problem solving -Technical operations Each participating country has identified its own needs. Our digital frameworks offer guidance as to how one might develop a focused digital approach to education, this project will allow education authorities and schools the opportunity to unpick the theory and put it into practice, trialling methodology with young people at the fore.

We successfully completed this exciting 2 year project enabling creative arts specialists go into schools across the 3 partner regions to up-skill teachers and develop teacher competences in the delivery of creative arts. Through active engagement, targeted training, effective support and exchange of good practice, locally and internationally, teachers in participating schools are effecting change and impacting curriculum delivery. There were four partner countries, Wales, Spain, Romania and Turkey. Coordinating partners from each region were local authorities supporting schools in raising standards through international programmes such s Erasmus+. Pupils and teachers were from primary and secondary schools in both mainstream and special education. Additional partners were from creative arts organisations supporting the work throughout and providing much of the training.Pupil voice has been an important element of this project. Pupils have been given the opportunity to share experiences and work with teachers thus contributing to the success of the outputs. In each region, we organised comprehensive training for participating teachers. The training included developing skills in embedding creativity across the curriculum aiming to raise standards in teaching and learning across the curriculum.Teachers identified areas of learning in which they hoped to see improvement. These included:Writing for purposeProblem solvingSpeaking and listeningBasic numeracyPlanning and evaluatingWorld issuesand they approached these through a wide range of creative arts including:Mixed media artworkSculpture Story tellingDanceSingingWeavingCostume designThis Creative Arts project has been an effective tool empowering students including those with additional learning needs through creativity. The impact has been extensive. Pupils have demonstrated increased competence in the 5 creative habits of mind, in wellbeing and in attendance. There has been a notable improvement in confidence in front of peers, in pupils’ own abilities and a willingness to try new things.There has been the anticipated rise in standards evidenced by a positive impact on end of year tracking and targets. Pupils have shown improvement too in application of skills by transferring their learning to real life situations.Staff too have benefitted by demonstrating a readiness to try new approaches and allowing for pupil led learning. Teachers are more confident in delivering Creative Arts based learning and in using Creative Arts to enhance the whole curriculum, tailoring creative learning for all learnersAll participating teaches have gained an understanding of developments in curricular in partner countries, have developed an understanding and can utilise, international approaches from partner countries. In this way, they have profited from specialist professional development, re-energising their teaching.