We had our validation session with Katharine in June. Katharine was lovely, she got in touch beforehand and shared lots of information about what to expect on the day, and made us aware she could be contacted at any time if we had further queries.

We were encouraged to design our own session and this was good as we felt in control. We were given a 45 minute slot, we did go over this, without pressure from Katharine as we wanted to share everything including some of our children sharing their digital learning journey. Katharine was warm and friendly and even allowed the children to turn her into an AI character as part of their presentation. She asked quality questions which allowed us to expand on what we have been doing in the setting and highlight what our next steps would be.

At the end of the session Katharine shared her thoughts, she told us we were doing a great job embedding digital learning into practice and gave us the excellent news we would be receiving not one but three awards. Katharine shared we were able to evidence our dedication to the health and wellbeing of our children, and praised our creative way of using coding and AI with the children. We were awarded the Equitable Creative Coding Award and Digital Wellbeing Award alongside the Digital Learning and Teaching for Early Years Award, making us the first triple accredited setting in our local authority!

Our validation has now come through and we are excited to share our achievements with our families, colleagues and the wider community.