The Intent, Implementation and Impact of our Curriculum – Computing
Intent
At our school we want pupils to be MASTERS of technology and not slaves to it. Technology is everywhere and will play a pivotal part in students' lives,. Therefore, we want to model and educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and safely. We want our pupils to be creators not consumers and our broad curriculum encompassing computer science, information technology and digital literacy reflects this. We want our pupils to understand that there is always a choice with using technology and as a school we utilise technology (especially social media) to model positive use. We recognise that the best prevention for a lot of issues we currently see with technology/social media is through education.
Computing is taught throughout the school in such a way as to reflect the overall aims, values, and philosophy of the school and very strongly to our Open Doors Curriculum while seeks to provide all pupils access to learning opportunities and skills for life by opening doors to five key areas:
Door 1 – Core knowledge and skills
We believe that an effective curriculum for Reading, Writing, Maths and Science is a door for all pupils to enter into a more fulfilling and hopeful life where they can flourish and aspire to reach their full potential having a positive impact on the flourishing of those around them. Computing is part of this because throughout computing children are using the skills the have learnt to fully access the digital world around them. Children can use computing to read an online blog, write and build a website, build a pictogram, use a spreadsheet, making a graph and writing an email.
Door 2 -The World
Provide a curriculum that enables all children to develop a growing knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the world (local and global). Computing supports this by allowing children to learn about others by conducting information searches using the internet.
Door 3 – Healthy body, Healthy Mind, Healthy Lives
We want our children to be healthy; to have a healthy image of themselves as individuals. Computing is strongly linked to future aspirations. Children who are confident with computing will be able to access future learning and high quality jobs. Computing opens a world of skills and knowledge.
Door 4 – Creativity
For our children to enjoy a strong practical curriculum. A curriculum where children will anticipate problems, imagine solutions, evaluate, adjust and problem solve as they go. Computing opens up a world of creative thinking through coding, animation and creating pictures.
Door 5- Communication and Language
Provide a curriculum that gives all pupils the opportunity to develop their communication and language skills acquiring rich, varied and essential vocabulary alongside increasingly sophisticated and mature ways of engaging socially in conversation, presentation and writing appropriate to the audience and context. Computing supports this through presentations, blogging, emails and making posters.
Implementation
As a school we have chosen the Purple Mash Scheme of Work from Nursery to Year 6. The scheme of work supports our teachers in delivering fun and engaging lessons which help to raise the standards and allow all pupils to achieve their full potential. In order to ensure our children receive a broad and balanced curriculum where the knowledge and skills build year on year to deepen and challenge our learners. We have also mapped out a progression of skills using additional software to Purple Mash such as Scratch, Kodu, Word, Power Point, Publisher and Excel.
The Scheme is developed through these areas:
- Coding and Computational thinking
- Spreadsheets
- Internet and Email
- Art and Design
- Music
- Databases and graphing
- Writing and presenting
- Communication and Networks
Impact
We hope to see our children confident when using technology, aware of how to treat devices and demonstrating how to stay safe in today’s world. We want them to see how technology can benefit working, life and free time without becoming something that is unnecessarily relied upon.
We measure the impact of our curriculum using the following methods:
· Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.
· Images of the children’s practical learning.
· Children’s work saved onto their individual accounts.
· Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
· Annual reporting to parents of standards across the curriculum.