DCF Cymru Digital competence for Wales

Cover Lessons

Cover lesson ideas linking to the DCF, for a range of subjects, both offline and digital.

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Planning an On-screen History Enquiry

Year 11 · History · Advanced

DCF: Producing → Sourcing, searching and planning digital content

Pupils work through the five enquiry stages of an on-screen historical enquiry using printed practice screens on the Great Strike of Penrhyn, 1900 to 1903: a hypothesis and a 3-hour time plan, a provenance grid for two sources and two interpretations, a paragraph plan with item codes and on-screen working habits, one developed paragraph, and a critical reflection. Practises the method of GCSE History Unit 2: An in-depth study on European and/or World history, which is completed on WJEC's e-assessment platform. Penrhyn is not a Unit 2 option and three of the four items are clearly marked as invented, so this is practice only, not NEA work.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Checking a Climate Claim with Carbon Footprints

Year 11 · Integrated Science · Advanced

DCF: Producing → Sourcing, searching and planning digital content

For GCSE Integrated Science (Single Award), Unit 2: Science in a Changing World, 2.1.2 Carbon in our climate: pupils trace a viral claim that one cow harms the climate more than a car back to the farm data behind it. They calculate carbon footprints in kgCO2eq using Global Warming Potential, score seven sources for reliability, plan searches with quotation marks, site: and a minus sign, reference a source in full and write a referenced verdict on whether the claim is over-simplified.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Calculator
  • Highlighters

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Spreadsheet Break-Even Model

Year 11 · IT · Advanced Presentation

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Problem-solving and modelling

Pupils design a break-even spreadsheet for an Aberystwyth coffee cart: they write the formulas with absolute references, calculate the model table by hand, draw the break-even graph and debug a cousin's broken version. They then test what-if scenarios, a stepped cost written with IF and a twelve-month forecast, and explain the model's limits. Works on paper or in Excel or Google Sheets.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Calculator
  • Ruler

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Comparing Broadband Speeds with Box Plots

Year 11 · Maths · Advanced

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Data and information literacy

GCSE Mathematics and Numeracy Unit 3: Calculator-allowed, Higher tier statistics: cumulative frequency tables and diagrams (4.2.18), box-and-whisker diagrams to compare distributions (4.2.19), and testing a hypothesis while taking account of the limitations of the data (4.1.2, 4.1.4, 4.2.23). Pupils use an invented community council survey of download speeds in two Welsh villages to build a cumulative frequency table and curve, estimate the median, quartiles and interquartile range, and draw a box plot beside the one given for the other village. They compare the villages with one average and one spread, test the councillor's hypothesis and a resident's claim against Ofcom's superfast and Universal Service Obligation speeds, judge the reliability of a self-selected, one-evening, mixed Wi-Fi and cable sample, and modify the conclusion when cable-only medians halve the gap.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Calculator
  • Ruler
  • Computer/Laptop (optional)

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Mathematical Modelling of Epidemics

Year 11 · Maths · Advanced Presentation

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Problem-solving and modelling

Pupils turn a written description of an outbreak into the SIR recurrence relations and run them for 30 days in a spreadsheet, or 14 days on paper. They locate the peak, test the model by checking that S plus I plus R stays equal to the population, halve the transmission rate, and evaluate the model's assumptions.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Computer/Laptop

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Screen Time and Well-being in French

Year 11 · MFL · Advanced Presentation

DCF: Citizenship → Health and well-being

Pupils read a French article on teenage screen time and sleep, answer detailed comprehension questions, and test its claims by calculating percentages from an invented survey of 120 lycée pupils. They explain why the survey shows a link but not a cause, translate a paragraph into English, and write a 150-word French article on whether screens help or harm well-being.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Calculator

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Checking a Software Lead Sheet

Year 11 · Music · Advanced

DCF: Producing → Evaluating and improving digital content

GCSE Music Unit 3: Appraising, content 1.3.4: how music is notated and captured. An invented composer recorded a Welsh jig into a DAW and let notation software turn it into a lead sheet. Pupils check the software's output against the MIDI data (note numbers, timings, velocities and a chord track) and the composer's notes, and find five errors: 3/4 instead of 6/8, the anacrusis counted as bar 1, a quantise error, a note spelt D flat instead of C sharp, and A instead of A7. They answer exam-style questions on the corrected tune (compound duple time, roman numerals, cadences, intervals), rewrite two bars, and justify their changes to the composer with the settings to use next time.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Computer/Laptop (optional)

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Planning a Film Score Cue Sheet

Year 11 · Music · Advanced Presentation

DCF: Producing → Sourcing, searching and planning digital content

Working from the scene list of an invented short film set at Rhossili, pupils complete a cue sheet with frame-accurate durations and usage codes, then calculate which tempos and metres land the hit points on downbeats. They compare licensing a record, a production music library and a pastiche for the on-screen radio song, plan the library search, and write a composer's brief for the tension cue.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Calculator

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Researching Evidence-Based Training

Year 11 · PE · Advanced Presentation

DCF: Producing → Sourcing, searching and planning digital content

Pupils help an invented Year 11 sprinter decide whether to stretch before races: they sharpen his vague search into a focused research question, build search strings with quotation marks, OR, minus and site:, and judge eight printed search results from an advert to a systematic review. They place the sources on an evidence ladder, catch a newspaper headline overstating a study, and write a research plan, a reference and a warm-up recommendation with a source letter after every claim.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Calculator

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Video Evidence for Performance Analysis

Year 11 · PE · Advanced

DCF: Interacting and collaborating → Storing and sharing

GCSE Physical Education and Health Unit 2, section 2.1.5 Analysis and evaluation, and the rule that off-site performances need audio-visual evidence. From a printed clip log of an invented Year 11 kayaker's two slalom runs, pupils analyse environmental, personal and situational factors and write a timed analysis paragraph. They choose which clips count as evidence, work out file sizes and frame counts to pick a format that plays and fits (HEVC or H.264, 4K or 1080p, 60 or 30 fps, PDF or Word), name and store the files, and reply to a club that wants to post the video publicly. Practice only, not NEA work.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Calculator
  • Highlighters

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Online Identity and Employment

Year 11 · PSE / Well-being · Advanced Presentation

DCF: Citizenship → Identity, image and reputation

Pupils act as the manager filling one Saturday job, scoring three invented applicants' public profiles against what an employer may lawfully consider under the Equality Act 2010. They then write a five-step plan for their own digital footprint. Nobody searches for a real person at any point.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Citing Sources in Human Rights Research

Year 11 · RE · Advanced

DCF: Citizenship → Digital rights, licensing and ownership

GCSE Religious Studies Unit 4, section 4.2.1: researching how charities work for a human rights issue and how that work aligns with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pupils find six honesty problems in an invented pupil's draft on the right to education, from copied charity text and patchwriting to a chatbot's unchecked statistic and a misattributed Bible verse. They write Harvard references for five sources, decide which words, photos and slogans can be reused under copyright, a Creative Commons licence or fair dealing, and rewrite the paragraph in their own words with citations, a Muslim teaching, a humanist view and a judgement. Practice with invented charities, not NEA work.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Highlighters

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Digital Ethics Debate

Year 11 · RE · Advanced Presentation

DCF: Citizenship → Online behaviour and online bullying

Pupils are assigned a side of the motion that anonymous accounts should not be allowed on social media, build a case using one ethical approach and one religious or humanist teaching, and deliver a two-minute speech. The assessed piece is the closing reflection, where they state what they actually think.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Computer/Laptop

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Modelling Radioactive Half-Life

Year 11 · Science · Advanced Presentation

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Problem-solving and modelling

Pupils run their own 20-nucleus decay simulation from a printed random-digit table, build the matching mathematical model, and plot a 600-dice simulation against 600 × (5/6)^n to read off a constant half-life. They apply the model to iodine-131, technetium-99m and the caesium-137 from Chernobyl that led to controls on north Wales sheep farms until 2012, and evaluate where the model stops explaining reality.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Scientific calculator
  • Ruler

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Sources for a Social Action Proposal

Year 11 · Social Studies · Advanced

DCF: Producing → Sourcing, searching and planning digital content

GCSE Social Studies Unit 4: Planning to Effect Social Change, section 4.1.1 Understanding social action, with the Unit 2 criteria for assessing the credibility of sources. Practice only, not NEA work: the town and issue are invented. Pupils rewrite a vague internet search using exact phrases, site:, the minus sign and Welsh, judge seven sources on a missing evening bus (council report, bus company blog, social media post, youth survey, old newspaper, advert and a Welsh-language papur bro) for accuracy, authority, currency, bias and purpose, write full references, and draft a proposal of the issue, its impact on the community and the desired change.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Highlighters

Software / weblinks

See a completed example