DCF Cymru Digital competence for Wales

Cover Lessons

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

Clear

Analysing Fake News

Year 10 · English · Advanced

DCF: Producing → Evaluating and improving digital content

Pupils judge three conflicting reports of the same invented local news story against one evaluation grid, quoting the evidence behind every verdict. They then rewrite the least reliable report accurately in about 120 words and record what they removed and why.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Computer/Laptop

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Checking the Data in a Campaign Infographic

Year 10 · English · Intermediate

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Data and information literacy

Pupils test a campaign infographic claiming that the four-day week works against the full results of an invented six-month trial with 20 employers in south Wales. They find the small print behind the 92% headline, measure a bar chart whose axis starts at 6.5, work out the real fall in sick days, and group the data by sector to reveal who the trial did not work for. They then analyse the infographic's language, structure and form, compare it with a bakery owner's speech, and write bullet-point notes for a group discussion. Practises GCSE English Language and Literature Unit 3: Influence and Power, reading non-continuous texts and a transcript of a spoken text on the Work and Sustainability theme. Practice only, not NEA work.

Resources required

Tools required

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

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Email Etiquette for Jobs

Year 10 · English · Intermediate

DCF: Interacting and collaborating → Communication

Pupils find and fix the ten faults in a disastrous job application email, writing out the corrected line for each one. They then draft their own application email for the same advertised vacancy, answering both questions the advert asks.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Computer/Laptop

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Modelling the Nutrition of Welsh Rarebit

Year 10 · Food and Nutrition · Intermediate

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

Practises GCSE Food and Nutrition Unit 1: Principles of Food and Nutrition, 1.2.3 A balanced diet: calculating energy and nutritional values in food, the importance of fibre, and the effects of too much saturated fat and salt. Pupils debug a café manager's paper spreadsheet for Welsh rarebit (caws pobi), finish the model with formulas for saturates, salt and fibre, work out per portion values, reference intake percentages and traffic light colours, then test ingredient swaps one at a time to find a lighter version that meets four targets, and answer exam-style questions.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Calculator
  • Coloured pencils
  • Computer/Laptop (optional)

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Reading a French School Travel Survey

Year 10 · French · Intermediate

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Data and information literacy

GCSE French Unit 4 Reading and Writing, language for travel (environment and sustainability). Pupils read a French school blog page about how pupils travel to school, with a bar chart and two data tables, and answer questions in English. They group the data into active travel, public transport and car, work out percentages for 2023 and 2025, and test the blog's two claims against its own table: one is right and one is wrong. They translate five sentences into English, then design an anonymous four-question survey form in French for their own class and write three French sentences predicting the results.

Resources required

Tools required

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

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Improving a Coastal Erosion Infographic

Year 10 · Geography · Intermediate

DCF: Producing → Evaluating and improving digital content

Pupils calculate rates of cliff retreat from GIS measurements taken from aerial photographs of an invented Welsh bay, then use them to explain why the boulder clay bay retreats about 15 times faster than the sandstone headlands and what rock armour did to the coast next to it. They test a community council infographic against the data, log five faults using readers' comments as feedback, and redesign it with an accurate headline, a chart from zero, a key, a scale and a source line. Practises GCSE Geography Unit 1: Our Physical and Human World, 1.2 Changing coastlines (1.2.5 human and physical factors that affect the rates of coastline change).

Resources required

Tools required

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

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Population Pyramids from Census Data

Year 10 · Geography · Intermediate

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Data and information literacy

Pupils turn real 2021 Census counts for Conwy into percentages, draw its population pyramid beside a completed one for Cardiff, and calculate dependency ratios for both areas. They explain the student bulge in Cardiff and the older population in Conwy with their own figures, and identify what census data cannot show, such as why people moved or how the term-time address rule affects the counts.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Calculator
  • Ruler

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

A German Web Page for Visitors to Your Town

Year 10 · German · Intermediate

DCF: Producing → Creating digital content

GCSE German Unit 4 Reading and Writing, language for travel (places in town). Pupils read a German tourist office web page for an invented town and answer questions in English on places, times and prices. They explain how the page is built (menu, headings, tables, image descriptions, language choice, contact) and who each part helps, fix a weak first draft, and translate four sentences. Then they plan, on paper, a German web page to attract German-speaking visitors to their own town: 100 to 130 words of accurate German, an image description for every picture, and no invented facts. A partner checks it against a grammar and design list.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Ruler
  • Coloured pencils

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Reading Wellbeing Indicators

Year 10 · Health and Social Care, and Childcare · Intermediate

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Data and information literacy

Pupils act as health board assistants for Cwmderwen, a fictional valley town, practising GCSE Health and Social Care, and Childcare Unit 1, section 1.3.1: wellbeing indicators. From a printed profile of two wards they sort indicators into the specification's four types (statistics, surveys and questionnaires, physiological measurements, lifestyle data), calculate gaps, ratios and percentages, check pulse, blood pressure, temperature and peak flow readings against reference ranges, describe a smoking trend, expose a misleading newsletter chart and an unrepresentative survey, and write a short recommendation on where a health promotion campaign should go first.

Resources required

Tools required

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

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Historical Photos and Copyright

Year 10 · History · Intermediate

DCF: Citizenship → Digital rights, licensing and ownership

Pupils apply UK copyright rules and archive rights statements to six photographs of Welsh working life for a class exhibition, working out when each one's copyright ends and deciding whether it can go on a classroom wall, the school website or a booklet sold at the Christmas fair. They write TASL credits for two photos and an email asking a picture library for permission.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Tracing the Depression in Census Records

Year 10 · History · Intermediate

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Data and information literacy

Pupils sort every person aged 14 and over on one mining street in the Cynon Valley, as recorded in the 1921 census and the 1939 Register, into groups, turn them into percentages and a comparative bar chart, and use a chapel members' book to trace where the people who left had gone. They test three claims against the figures, compare the street with real census totals for Wales and the Rhondda, and explain what the records can and cannot show. Practises GCSE History Unit 1: An in-depth study on Welsh history, option 1.6 Wales in the early to mid-twentieth century, 1.6.2 Life in Wales during the Depression (unemployment and emigration from Wales). The street is invented; the background and Welsh totals are real.

Resources required

Tools required

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

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Modelling the Spread of Flu

Year 10 · Integrated Science · Intermediate

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

For GCSE Integrated Science (Single Award), Unit 1: Living on Earth, 1.1.2 Disease prevention: pupils model the transmission of flu through a 1,000-pupil school. They find where a simple times-3 model breaks, run a model that tracks susceptible pupils with and without 75% vaccination, graph the outbreaks, fix two errors in a spreadsheet version, and test the model against a recorded outbreak before advising the head teacher on vaccination and hygiene.

Resources required

Tools required

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

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Digital Tools for Accessibility

Year 10 · IT · Intermediate

DCF: Citizenship → Health and well-being

Pupils match six real built-in accessibility features — Narrator, Immersive Reader, VoiceOver, TalkBack, browser zoom and live captions — to the barrier each removes, then audit a deliberately inaccessible school notice against the four WCAG principles and rewrite the worst of it.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Computer/Laptop

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Redrawing a Misleading Screen Time Chart

Year 10 · IT · Intermediate

DCF: Data and computational thinking → Data and information literacy

Numeracy in IT: representing data honestly. An invented parents' social media post uses a bar chart with an axis starting at 3.3 hours to claim Year 11 pupils spend eight times as long on screens as Year 7 pupils. Pupils list what is misleading, show that the bar looks 8 times taller but the real figure is only 1.2 times bigger (42 minutes, a 20.6% increase), redraw the chart on a grid with an axis from 0, a suitable scale, labels and a title, then calculate sector angles (3 degrees per pupil) and draw a pie chart of 120 Year 10 pupils' main screen activity with a protractor. They explain which chart suits which data and write a fair headline. Practice only, not NEA work.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Ruler
  • Protractor
  • Calculator

Software / weblinks

See a completed example

Debugging a Payslip Spreadsheet

Year 10 · Maths · Intermediate

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

GCSE Mathematics and Numeracy Unit 1: Financial Mathematics and Other Applications of Numeracy, section 1.8 personal/household finance: wages and salaries, including payslips, and taxation, including income tax and National Insurance. Pupils read a payslip and the real 2026 to 2027 rules for a Welsh taxpayer (tax code C1257L), work out gross pay, taxable pay, income tax, National Insurance and net pay by hand with a calculator, then use their answers to test a printed café pay spreadsheet. They run the same four checks on every row, read the formula view to find and fix 4 planted errors (a wrong cell reference, tax on gross pay, a hard-coded old National Insurance rate and a SUM that misses a row), trace each error to the cells it affected, and extend the model with an overtime formula that they test by hand.

Resources required

Tools required

  • Pen and paper
  • Calculator
  • Highlighters

Software / weblinks

See a completed example