Draft page under construction

Alongside the IOT in Schools project, the Data Education in Schools (DES) programme works to promote data literacy across the 3–18 curriculum throughout Scotland.

The Data Education in Schools project is part of the Edinburgh and South East Scotland City Region Deal Data Skills Programme, funded by the Scottish and UK Governments. The programme brings together industry, universities, colleges, schools and others to provide routes into data and digital careers.

About the DES programme

Screenshot of the Data Education in Schools website

dataschools.education — the home of DES resources and professional learning

The Data Education in Schools website is the central hub for teachers, pupils and educators looking to embed data literacy into their everyday teaching practice. It provides freely available resources, lesson plans, and professional learning materials designed to work within the Scottish Curriculum for Excellence.

Whether you are new to working with data or looking to extend your learners’ skills, the site offers practical, classroom-ready content from early years through to secondary school.

Visit dataschools.education →

What the programme offers

📚

Teaching Resources

Lesson plans, activities and worksheets covering data skills from early level through to senior phase.

🎓

Professional Learning

Workshops, webinars and self-study materials to help teachers build confidence with data topics.

🔗

CfE Alignment

All resources are tagged to Curriculum for Excellence outcomes across numeracy, science, technologies and beyond.

🤝

Community of Practice

Connect with a network of educators sharing ideas, lesson experiences, and pupil work from across Scotland.

🌐

Real-World Contexts

Activities grounded in authentic data — from environmental sensor readings to open datasets about everyday life.

📡

IOT Integration

The IOT in Schools project provides live sensor data that feeds directly into DES data literacy activities.

The PPDAC framework

At the heart of the DES programme is the PPDAC statistical enquiry cycle — a structured approach to data investigations that is used in classrooms from primary through to secondary:

P Problem

Define a question or problem to investigate

P Plan

Decide what data is needed and how to collect it

D Data

Collect, organise and manage the data

A Analysis

Explore, visualise and interpret the data

C Conclusion

Draw conclusions and communicate findings

The IOT in Schools sensors provide an ideal real-world dataset for learners to work through a full PPDAC cycle — from posing questions about their classroom environment through to presenting their conclusions.

Explore the DES resources

Published 8 October 2024  |  Contact us