Digital Leap Pilot at Reddish Vale High School

Our Digital Leap Pilot has been a great success! Working in partnership with Starting Point Community Learning Partnership, we’ve been delivering this new digital confidence programme in Stockport thanks to funding from the GM Strengthening Communities Fund.

Planning began in May, and in June, members of the PIE and Start Point teams had the incredible opportunity to attend the FOSI 2025 European Forum at Netflix’s EMEA Headquarters in Amsterdam. The forum, themed “The Philosophy, Policy, and Practice of Online Safety,” brought together leaders from government, academia, industry, and civil society to explore how research, regulation, and innovation can shape a safer, more empowering digital world. The insights gained there directly informed the design and focus of our Digital Leap sessions.

Before launching the programme, we gathered views from pupils, teachers, and parents at Reddish Vale High School about their digital experiences to ensure our sessions reflected real needs.

Our first Digital Leap session took place in July, welcoming Year 6 pupils transitioning to Year 7 and their families. This introductory session helped build connections and introduced the programme’s focus – supporting families to feel confident and capable in the digital world, both at school and at home.

Following sessions, co-delivered by PIE and Start Point, provided hands-on guidance for pupils and parents on using key school platforms such as ClassCharts and ParentPay. Former Year 7 pupils helped PIE create a “How to Use ClassCharts” video guide, which was shared across the whole school community. One new Year 7 pupil reflected, “I enjoyed the ClassCharts session because the Year 8 pupils were there to talk to about it.”

Start Point also introduced families to their Digital Bank, ensuring everyone knew how to access free data and digital support if needed. Drawing on our learning from the FOSI Forum, we went on to deliver sessions exploring online safety, healthy phone use, and digital decision-making, with parents and pupils discussing real-life scenarios separately before coming together to share reflections. A parent who took part said, “I have benefited from these sessions by learning about how to model good behaviour and digital practice.”

The programme has already had a wider ripple effect within school. The Assistant Head at Reddish Vale shared, “It has been really helpful to attendance and pastoral teams who are now looking to link up with the lending library and digi bank so that all families have the chance to access reliable devices.”

Facilitating these open family conversations about online life has been one of the most powerful aspects of the programme. The pilot has connected us with fantastic families who are now part of the Reddish Vale community – and we’re proud to see growing confidence, understanding, and transparency in their digital lives.