Vision

At our school we want pupils to be masters of technology. As part of our quest for a transformational education, technology must play a pivotal part in our 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.

Curriculum Design: How our curriculum is constructed and why?

Our knowledge-rich curriculum is balanced with the opportunity for pupils to apply their knowledge, both creatively and confidently, through the use of technology. Using the Teach Computing Curriculum design, each lesson is sequenced so that it builds on the learning from the previous lesson, and where appropriate, activities are scaffolded so that all pupils can succeed and thrive. Scaffolded activities provide pupils with extra resources, such as visual prompts, to achieve the same learning goals as the rest of the class. Exploratory tasks foster a deeper understanding of a concept, encouraging pupils to apply their learning in different contexts and make connections with other learning experiences. As well as scaffolding activities, embedded within the lessons are a range of pedagogical strategies, which support making computing topics more accessible. The Computing Curriculum Design is focused around these units of study:

> Computing Systems and Networks Around Us

> Programming

> Creating Media

> Data and Information

Through regular use of a variety of technologies, throughout the school day, we can ensure our pupils become skilful computer scientists, which will enable our pupils to seize their potential as lifelong learners in these digital times.

Curriculum Delivery: What our curriculum looks and feels like in action?

Our computing curriculum is taught for an hour each week and all lessons take place in our computing suite, which has a desktop for each child. Within the timetabled curriculum, we also dedicate time in the curriculum to 'drop-down days', which focus on key aspects of the computing curriculum, like internet safety. Using The National Centre for Computing Education’s pedagogical approach, we expect our teachers to apply some of their 12 key principles. These principles are underpinned by research and have been shown to contribute to effective teaching and learning in computing. These consist of:

• Lead with concepts
• Work together
• Get hands-on
• Unplug, unpack and repack
• Model everything
• Foster programme comprehension
• Create projects
• Add variety
• Challenge misconceptions
• Make concrete
• Structure lessons
• Read and explore code first

Our teachers use their professional judgement to review, select, and apply relevant strategies for their pupils in computing lessons.

 

During lockdown, we used Google Classroom as our main platform for remote learning. After positive feedback from the community, we have now embedded this within our curriculum through a number of curriculum areas, including computing. Therefore, some lessons are dedicated to understanding and practising using this platform. This includes using it for communication, accessing work and submitting assignments. We understand that our community, like most within the country, can find it challenging to monitor and and support their children when using technology. Therefore, we dedicate specific curriculum time to computing and PSHE to support our pupils by using technology safely. This includes taking part in Safer Internet Day each year and running workshops for our parents on the potential dangers of technology.

Impact: How do we know our pupils are learning, understanding and remembering our intended curriculum?

The learning objective and success criteria are introduced in the slides at the beginning of every lesson. During the lesson, the teacher will do over the shoulder marking to pick up on any mistakes or misconceptions. At the end of every lesson, pupils are invited to assess how well they feel they have met the learning objective using different formative strategies. Using Do Nows and retrieval quizzes, teachers review the content that has been covered and adapt planning to provide opportunities to recap learning. Every unit includes an optional summative assessment framework in the form of either a multiple choice quiz (MCQ) or a rubric. All units are designed to cover both skills and concepts from across the Computing National Curriculum.