Bridging the digital divide in teaching: how to adapt lessons for all learners

Technology can transform education, but not every pupil has the same access. This digital divide can limit progress, confidence and engagement, especially for learners with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), language barriers or socioeconomic challenges.

This guide, aimed at classroom teachers and heads of service, explores how you can adapt computing lessons for everyone. It offers practical tips, low-tech alternatives and inclusive design principles to make learning accessible for all pupils.

What is the digital divide?

The digital divide means the gap between those who have full access to digital tools and those who don’t. In schools, this can mean:

• pupils without reliable devices or internet access at home
• families that can’t afford the most updated hardware or software
• learners with special educational needs and disabilities who need tailored resources
• pupils with English as an additional language navigating text-heavy digital tools

Recognising these barriers is the first step to bridging the digital divide in your classroom. The government has pledged £45 million to improve digital connectivity in schools, with the stated goal that no child is left behind.

Examples of the digital divide in the classroom

It can sometimes be difficult to identify where pupils are at a disadvantage, especially if your school is well-supplied with good connectivity, but pupils are struggling because of digital access issues at home, or because they have special educational needs.

Here are two common examples of how the digital divide can appear in everyday lessons.

Example 1: A homework task relying on home devices

A teacher asks pupils to start a coding task as homework, using an online tool. While most pupils arrive with their projects ready to work on, a few have not started. It is not that they are disengaged – these pupils simply don’t have a reliable computer or broadband access at home.

In this case, an alternative option, such as offering extra lunchtime access to school computers, helps ensure no pupil is left behind.

Example 2: learners who struggle with reading-heavy platforms

Many online learning tools rely on large amounts of written instructions. For pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, dyslexia or those still developing their English language skills, this can feel overwhelming and discouraging.

Here, offering visual step-by-step guides, using text-to-speech tools or pairing these learners with a supportive peer can make the task more accessible.

Why adapting lessons matters

Leaving some pupils behind widens achievement gaps – not only in computing, but across the curriculum. Helping to bridge the digital divide in the classroom helps every pupil to:

• build digital confidence
• gain essential future-critical skills
• feel included, valued and supported in computing lessons

Strategies to help you to adapt lessons for every learner

You don’t need the latest technology to run inclusive lessons. Here are effective strategies you can use that help bridge that digital divide, and address the needs of each pupil in their own way.

Offer low-tech alternatives

Use unplugged activities such as paper coding to reinforce computing concepts without screens, like physically modelling how computers pass information in the classroom – but remember that pupils with SEND might need more support in recalling any key learnings from practical examples, too. Take a look at our community blog on adapting the Teach Computing Curriculum for some more great examples on how this can work.

Provide materials in different formats

It can help to mix visuals, audio prompts and easy-read guides to support pupils with special educational needs and disabilities or language needs. Resources such as our course on supporting learners with SEND in computing can help educators to develop their own toolkits for their classrooms.

Structure peer support

Pair confident digital users with peers who need a bit more support when organising pair work, or more formal peer mentoring in older pupils. The end goal is to grow confidence with computing tools, but this approach also helps to foster collaboration and communication.

Choose accessible tools

Select platforms with built-in access features such as text-to-speech and high-contrast visuals. Scratch, for example, is user-friendly and highly visual, which makes it a good option for beginners.

Bridging the gap beyond the classroom

You can also extend inclusion strategies outside the lesson:

• Device loans or after-school access – enable pupils to use school technology before or after hours
• Community resources – encourage access to internet and equipment through local libraries or community hubs
• Parent and carer workshops – run simple sessions to show how families can support learning at home. This is also a good opportunity to discuss with carers how computer literacy can help students later in life and unlock career prospects.

What you can do next

The Computing Quality Framework’s equity, diversity and inclusion benchmark is a helpful way to audit your school’s provision. This will highlight areas for improvement and help you to find tailored support for you and your school.

Bridging the digital divide is an ongoing process, but by adapting lessons, using inclusive design, we can help every pupil to succeed in computing.