Computing

“The Web as I envisaged it, we have not seen it yet. The future is still so much bigger than the past.”

– Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of WWW

Intent

At Bedgrove Junior School we want to inspire all children 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 to model positive use. We recognise that technology can allow pupils to share their learning in creative ways. We also understand the accessibility opportunities technology can provide for our pupils. Our knowledge rich curriculum has to be balanced and challenge pupils to apply their knowledge creatively which will in turn help our pupils become skilful computer scientists. We encourage staff to try and embed computing across the whole curriculum to make learning creative and accessible. We want our pupils to be fluent with a range of tools to best express their understanding and hope by the end of Key Stage 2 children have the independence and confidence to choose the best tool to succeed at any task and challenge set by teachers.

Implementation

We have a discreet timetable for the development of ICT skills as well as promoting the use of transferable skills across subjects. The computing planning is designed to ensure sequential progression from Year 3 to Year 6 building on the skills and knowledge from previous years. Computing is taught in weekly discrete lessons by our specialist computing teacher. Each area of learning is covered bi-termly on a class rotation basis so each child will have computing lessons for three out of six half terms. Computing is taught in our ICT room or via our bank of laptops or I-pads in the classroom environment. There are also opportunities for “unplugged” learning with a focus on eSafety, computational thinking and programming design. Outside of these discreet lessons we provide children with an opportunity to use ICT across the curriculum through our laptops and iPads. We ensure that ICT is used to motivate and engage learners across the curriculum. We encourage staff to use ICT to support teaching. For example, staff are confident to use air server to support modelling in writing, purple mash to record different methods of learning and iPads to support research or editing.

Impact

We encourage our children to enjoy and value the curriculum we deliver. We will constantly ask the WHY behind their learning and not just the HOW. We want learners to discuss, reflect and appreciate the impact computing has on their learning, development and wellbeing. Finding the right balance with technology is key to an effective education and a healthy life-style. We feel our implementation of computing provides children with the foundation to build on in their next stage of education and beyond. We encourage regular discussions between staff and pupils to best embed and understand this. The way pupils showcase, share, celebrate and publish their work will best show the impact of our curriculum. We also look for evidence through reviewing pupil’s knowledge and skills digitally through tools like Seesaw and observing learning.