Digital Leadership and Governance Standards Checklist 2026/27

An editable checklist for working through the DfE's four digital leadership and governance standards with your headteacher, SLT digital lead, IT support, DPO and governors. 2026/27 edition, checked against the standard as last updated in March 2025.

This is one of the DfE's six core digital standards, and schools should be working towards meeting it by 2030. It is the foundation for the others: the SLT digital lead, your registers and your continuity plans all come before your digital technology strategy.

What's new in this edition

• The DfE contracts register, asset register and information asset register templates (added November 2024)
• The March 2025 changes linking registers and disaster recovery plans to the cyber security standards
• Pointers to the 2026 changes in the related cyber security and filtering and monitoring standards

What's inside

• A one-page summary of what's changed since the January 2024 version
• All four standards as tick-and-evidence tables: assigning an SLT digital lead, keeping registers up to date, including digital technology in disaster recovery and business continuity plans, and an annual digital technology strategy
• For every line: whether you meet it now, your evidence, or the next step and who owns it
• Who needs to be involved and when each standard should be met
• Current position, target and evidence boxes, and a sign-off table

Editable Word document, 7 pages, landscape. Works well alongside our Cyber Security Standards Checklist and Filtering and Monitoring Standards Checklist.

Part of the HeadteacherChat community library. Members get this resource, the full topic pack it belongs to and every update when guidance changes, alongside live sessions and more than 1,400 fellow school leaders. Join the community.