Welcome to our DigiSmart world. It is a place where we aim to make change happen.

The What and Why of DigiSmart

DigiSmart is an intervention strategy helping children from poor and low-income backgrounds to catch up with their more advantaged peers.

DigiSmart works in partnership with schools. This partnership is based on a shared commitment to helping children improve their engagement with learning and experience success.

The children we target are twice as likely not to reach the expected national standard for their age before they leave primary school. We believe that the vast majority of them can achieve that standard with the right support.

Before it’s too late

The project deliberately targets Year 5 children (ages 9–10). This is one of the last chances to make a really decisive impact.

The DigiSmart activities build on early success and use technology as a motivational hook.

On target

DigiSmart provides a very structured, progressional programme of extra support across a year for a group of disadvantaged learners at risk of not achieving Level 4 by the end of Year 6.

Children’s progress, specifically in relation to ICT and reading, is assessed and measured from start to finish.

Yes they can

We have a body of evidence gathered over several years showing that DigiSmart helps children to experience success and make strong attainment gains.

The most recent project data shows that:

  • 93% of children were under-performing in ICT when they started DigiSmart. By the end of Year 5, 99% of them were working at the expected National Curriculum (NC) level for their age.
  • Almost half the children were also under-performing in literacy at the start. By the end of Year 5, 93% had caught up and were reading within the expected NC level for their age.

Let’s do it

To date over 5000 children have benefited from taking part in DigiSmart.

There are thousands more disadvantaged children out there who would benefit.

We want DigiSmart to help as many of them as possible because every child deserves the chance to succeed in education.