Audit & Scrutiny - The purpose and use of Glow in North Ayrshire Education Service - 260129
North Ayrshire Council · 29 January 2026
Back to Audit and Scrutiny Committee — 29 January 2026 and its agenda
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NORTH AYRSHIRE COUNCIL 29 January 2026 Audit and Scrutiny Committee Title: The purpose and use of Glow in North Ayrshire Education Service Purpose: To provide the Audit and Scrutiny Committee with an overview of the key features of the national education digital platform, Glow, and how it is used in practice across Education in North Ayrshire. Recommendation: It is recommended that the Audit and Scrutiny Committee: a) note the content of the report 1. Executive Summary 1.1 This report provides an overview of Glow, Scotland’s national digital learning environment, and outlines its purpose and use across North Ayrshire Education Service. Glow is a Scottish Government-funded platform, managed by Education Scotland, which provides a secure, equitable and nationally consistent digital environment to support learning and teaching. It enables collaboration, communication and access to digital tools for learners, educators and education authorities, while supporting curriculum delivery, skill development and the reduction of teacher workload. In North Ayrshire, Glow is embedded across all educational establishments, with all teaching staff and learners provided with access and using the platform routinely as part of everyday educational practice. 1.2 The report also highlights the safeguards, security and governance arrangements that underpin Glow, including strict access controls, national security standards and dedicated safeguarding oversight. As a closed system, Glow prioritises online safety and child protection, while offering a wide range of digital services to support learning and professional collaboration. 2. Background 2.1 Glow is Scotland’s national digital environment to support learning across the curriculum. Glow was set up in 2007 to provide a safe digital learning platform for learners and educators in all 32 local authorities across Scotland. It is funded by the Scottish Government and managed by Education Scotland.
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The purpose of Glow 2.2 The key purpose of Glow is to: provide a suite of services to support curriculum delivery; support the acquisition of skills for learning, life and work; provide equitable access across Scotland to the most appropriate technologies for all learners; enable and enhance collaboration across the educational landscape; provide a national solution and remove the need for local authorities to procure individually alternative systems to support communication and collaboration within and across educational establishments; reduce teacher workload through the provision of high quality services to support learning and teaching. 2.3 Glow was developed to support learners, educators and education authorities to engage in learning and teaching through digital technologies. The key benefits to these groups are outlined below: 2.3.1 Glow supports learners Learners live in a networked world where online social collaboration is part of their everyday lives. Their future working lives will similarly encompass a whole range of digital connections. Where the skills to connect, share, collaborate and adapt to an ever- changing range of technologies are at a premium, children and young people who do not possess these skills will be at a disadvantage. • Glow provides learners with access to a learning environment that adapts and evolves to meet future needs • It offers a protected environment, appropriate for learning • It enables children and young people to gain important skills and experiences that enhance learning. This prepares them for a world of work in which digital skills and competencies are in demand • It actively promotes and encourages the development of independent and responsible learning • It provides equitable access to the most appropriate technologies for all learners • It enables the development of differentiated learning opportunities that remove barriers to learning for children and young people with additional support needs. 2.3.2 Glow supports educators The GTCS Standard for Full Registration state that teachers are expected to have secure knowledge and understanding of current guidance on the use of digital technologies in schools and know how to use digital technologies competently to enhance teaching and learning. • Educators face a challenge in constantly updating their own digital skills, knowledge and practice. • The Glow platform maximizes the efforts of individual teachers through facilitating collaborative learning networks across local authority boundaries. • Glow based Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) enable teachers to discuss and share approaches to learning and teaching, as well as opening up access to Education Scotland education officers. • Glow supports a deeper understanding of the use of digital technologies and how they can be used to support and enhance learning and teaching across all curriculum areas
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• Glow provides a protected online environment where teachers, children and young people can connect, share and collaborate in and away from the classroom • Glow enables access to digital services that allow teachers to design and co- design learning resources, along with digital tools that support approaches to assessment and reduce teacher workload. 2.3.3 Glow supports education authorities Education authorities are responsible for delivering a world class education that is engaging, relevant and enjoyable. They are accountable for school improvement. • The provision of a central, single authentication portal and the choices this offers education authorities in personalising services to meet local needs, is a unique and evolving element of the Glow service. • Glow ensures best value as time and resources are not unnecessarily wasted as individual authorities or schools seek their own solutions and establish their own support and data protection arrangements. • Glow supports education authorities in accessing and making available commonly used and relevant services, applications and networking technologies within an online environment that promotes child safety and reduces risk. • Scottish Government ensures that Glow conforms to agreed standards in relation to the use and security of data, whilst recognising that education authorities are individually responsible for implementing legal requirements and codes of practice relating to the use of information technology. Access to Glow 2.4 Online safety is of the utmost importance in the delivery and management of Glow. Glow is not an open system and should be viewed as an extension of the school/education establishment. Only learners, and adults who require access in relation to their role as teaching or support staff, are provided with Glow accounts. All adults will have been Disclosure Scotland checked at minimum prior to their individual Glow account being created. 2.5 Therefore, as Glow is a closed system, direct access is not available to any Council employees outwith the education service, nor is it available to elected members, parents and carers or other members of the public. Of course, communication with parents and carers is vitally important. That is why schools have a wide range of ways (both digital and physical) to ensure that families are fully up-to-date with what is going on at school and how their child is progressing. Services provided through Glow 2.6 Glow is used by learners and educators across Scotland in lots of different ways. Some examples of how Glow is used in learning and teaching are listed below: • Communicate, collaborate and co-create with other Glow users • Upload and share content • Use Glow to create e-portfolios • Create personalised programmes of work • Share ideas and learning resources • Create your own website and share information • Plan tasks and track progress
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• Join or create learning communities • Create and join online meetings • Use as a platform for remote online learning Security 2.7 Security and safeguarding are of high importance within the whole Glow ecosystem. There is a dedicated safeguarding team at Education Scotland who deal with Glow, as well as staff at RM who provide security, particularly with the Microsoft components of Glow. 2.8 Security tools within Glow automatically delete specific emails sent to O365 if they are known to contain spam or malware. Certain filetypes cannot be attached to e-mail as they present a high risk of having inappropriate code within them. 2.9 In North Ayrshire. We are in the process of migrating school staff onto a corporate O365 licence in order to streamline access to corporate resources and foster collaboration between school and corporate staff. This will give staff an additional Microsoft 365 e-mail account and will further strengthen security. Using Glow in North Ayrshire 2.10 Glow plays an important role in supporting effective and secure digital learning and is used by all educational establishments in North Ayrshire. All teaching staff and all learners have a Glow login and these are used routinely on a daily basis in the provision of education. On average over the last year, there were almost 45,000 unique sessions on Glow per week in North Ayrshire. 2.11 The Glow platform is split into different levels of learning environments. There is a personal launch pad, a school launch pad, an education authority launch pad and a national launch pad. This enables users to access resources at a range of different levels. 2.12 The continued use of Glow in North Ayrshire ensures best value for the Council by avoiding duplication of systems, supporting national consistency and enabling access to high-quality digital tools that enhance learning outcomes 3. Proposals 3.1 It is proposed that the Audit and Scrutiny Committee: a) Note the content of this report
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4. Implications/Socio-economic Duty Financial 4.1 None. Human Resources 4.2 None. Legal 4.3 None. Equality/Socio-economic 4.4 None. Climate Change and Carbon 4.5 None. Key Priorities 4.6 The focus of the Education Service is to align with the Council Plan 2023-28 strategic aim to “transition to a wellbeing economy, delivering prosperity, wellbeing and resilience for local people” and more specifically “improving educational attainment and achievement and closing the attainment gap” activities. The quality of learning and teaching is a key component in raising attainment and this is enhanced through high- quality digital learning, including through the effective use of the Glow platform. Community Wealth Building 4.7 None. Islands Communities Impact Assessment (ICIA) 4.8 None. United Nations Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 4.9 None. Consumer Duty 4.10 None. 5. Consultation 5.1 There was not direct consultation with stakeholders in connection with the content of this report.
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Andrew McClelland Head of Service (Education) and Chief Education Officer For further information please contact Kathleen McCormick, Executive Manager (Education), on 01294 324413. Background Papers 0