Throckley Primary School
Computing – Intent, Implementation and Impact
Intent
At Throckley Primary School, we are committed to providing a purposeful and empowering curriculum that fully prepares learners for their next steps. We believe that computing is integral to all aspects of life and with this in mind, we endeavour to ensure that children develop a positive and enthusiastic attitude towards computing that will stay with them beyond their time at our school. Computing has the power to make a significant contribution to teaching and learning through experience, conversations and connections, which unite us with the world around us. Woven through the three strands of computing, Computer Science, Digital Literacy and Information Technology, the supportive study of significant people and rich stories, ensures children develop their sense of self and their aspirations for the future.
Our curriculum is underpinned by three drivers. By understanding our place in the world, computing facilitates contextualised learning. Children begin to develop their sense of identity in the wider world and how technology can influence this both positively and negatively and begin to recognise and discriminate information effectively to support their development of cultural capital. With technology becoming an increasingly profound aspect of the modern world, the computing curriculum provides opportunities for children to broaden their horizons. At Throckley Primary School, we provide access to workshops delivered by people working in a range of establishments. Not only can children apply their learning beyond the school gates, but they also begin to understand the importance of computing within their future careers. We encourage children to aspire to achieve, where progression of both skill and knowledge is vitally connected throughout the school. Computing lends itself to many opportunities of enquiry and experience as children take responsibility for their own learning. We facilitate independent learning within Computer Science and Information Technology, enabling child-led study and application of skills. This supports children in mastering their own knowledge and allows a deeper level of thinking.
Implementation
Clear learning intentions and tasks have been considerately planned within our whole school coverage and assessment documents. Within Computer Science, children are taught the principles of information and computation, how digital systems work and how to put this knowledge to use through programming. Building on this knowledge and understanding, children are equipped to use Information Technology to create
programs, systems and use a range of digital equipment. Computing also enables children to safely, responsibly and respectfully access portals such as the internet through Digital Literacy. Although some concepts strongly lend themselves to a particular strand, at Throckley Primary School, we use all three to provide a balanced context for learning, where children have the opportunity to enquire, connect, experience and master within the computing curriculum.
During the Early Years Foundation Stage, to support the understanding of our culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world, children are exposed to a range of technology, such as electronic toys, walkie-talkies, microphones, and recordable magnifying glasses as well as iPads and PCs where they learn the basics of using the Seesaw app and the internet. Through Beebots, children begin to develop a sense of instructional coding and can explore the concept input versus output and debugging at a simplistic level. This supports children’s transitions to Key Stage One, where all three strands of the computing curriculum are explicitly taught.
In Key Stage One, our children follow NCCE’s programming scheme of work to understand and implement algorithms and predict, create and debug programs using logical reasoning. We teach in accordance with Project Evolve and National Online Safety schemes so that children understand how to use technology safely and respectfully. Explicit lessons cover how to keep information private and where to go for help and support if pupils have concerns about what they have witnessed online. Our creative, dynamic and passionate teachers plan iPad projects and coupled with the iLearn2 scheme provide opportunities for children to purposely create, organise, store, manipulate and retrieve digital content, as well as recognise the common use of technology both within and beyond school. The progressive curriculum across this phase supports children in building more advanced coding skills, exploring greater online risks and using more complex IT software.
In Key Stage Two, our children continue with NCCE’s programming scheme of work, where they design, write and debug their own and given programs that accomplish specific goals. Solving problems by decomposing sections into smaller parts is a skill children apply from prior learning outside the computing curriculum, however, in computing lessons, children experience a deeper understanding of this as they begin to use sequence, selection, and repetition in programs, where variables and input and output forms are too large to solve as a whole. Logical reasoning is challenged as children transition through the phase; skilful questioning and quality talk is encouraged in small groups and class discussions. Resilience is a quality we strive for our children to strengthen at Throckley Primary School. With an initial understanding of how to use technology safely and respectfully, children use ‘Our Wonderful Learner’ reflective strategies to consider what are acceptable and unacceptable behaviours online and gradually become aware of the responsibility they hold and be accountable for their actions online. Current social issues surrounding our children every day such social
media, image editing and fake news are explicitly taught to our older children to ensure that they know how to report concerns about content and contact an appropriate adult. Continuing through the iLearn2 scheme, children in KS2 are given increasingly detailed explanations and interactive modelling of how technologies work such as computer systems and networks. Children’s confidence is using technology grows as they transition through school and with key knowledge being revisited each year, children are able to evaluate digital content more critically. Continuing to develop their digital device skills in LKS2, children begin to combine a range of software utilities in UKS2. Ultimately, this leads to authentic outcomes that the children analyse, evaluate and finally present to their peers. Children are proud to display their outcomes; resilience, effort and progress are praised.
Impact
Children at Throckley Primary School value computing lessons and love blended learning across the curriculum; they understand that in knowledge lies opportunity. Children leave Throckley Primary School digitally literate and skilled in problem solving. We see this through talking with our children about their learning and what they can remember and observing their natural manipulation of technology across the curriculum. Children leave Throckley with the confidence to try new things and make mistakes, seeing the opportunity that lies within adversity. Our bespoke computing curriculum has been designed to get the best out of each and every learner. Both on and offline, our children have been taught how to converse respectfully; how to value the responses offered by peers by celebrating ideas that aren’t their own, and how to politely disagree, offering their own thoughts and ideas. Children are enthused by technological devices, driven to accomplish set goals and resilient against online issues such as cyberbullying. They leave primary school armed with an awareness of their responsibility as a digital citizen of the modern world and have secure and developed moral foundations on which to further build.