Intent:

In The Kennet Federation, we understand the immense value technology plays in not only supporting the computing and whole school curriculum but overall the day-to day life of our school.  We aim to equip our children with the skills needed to cope in our rapidly changing world, where work and leisure activities are increasingly transformed by technology. Our Computing curriculum focuses on developing a progression of skills in digital literacy, computer science, information technology and online safety.  These strands are repeatedly revisited through each year group to ensure the learning is embedded and the skills are successfully developed, with a focus on it being delivered in a child friendly way.

Computing skills are a major factor in enabling children to be confident, creative and independent learners. It is our intention that children develop an appreciation of computing through a range of different mediums, developing their skills as they go.

The aims of our Computing curriculum in our school are for our children to:

• Be responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology
• Know how to keep themselves safe whilst using technology and the internet, minimising the risk to themselves and others.
• Evaluate and apply a range of software applications analytically to solve problems.
• Analyse problems in computational terms, and have repeated practical experience writing programs in order to solve such problems.
• Understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation.
• Become digitally literate and are active participants in a digital world.
• Have the necessary skills to use technology throughout their lives.
• Understand the importance of governance and legislation regarding how information is used, stored, created, retrieved, shared and manipulated.
• Utilise computational thinking in a cross-curricular manner.
• Understand and follow the school’s E-Safety rules, knowing how e-safety can keep them safe online.
• Know who to contact if they have concerns.
• All learners have equality of access to the curriculum and can be represented through the use of  carefully selected programs.

Implementation:

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in Computing, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school.  Computing is a foundation subject in the National Curriculum and at The Kennet Federation implementation of the Computing curriculum is in line with the 2013 Primary National Curriculum in England.

Teachers plan lessons for their year group using a varied scheme of work developed from a number of sources including purple mash and switched on computing.  Teachers use the units, tailoring them to their class to address each child's needs whether that be extra support or further challenge. This may also include specific programs for SEND or EAL pupils to use. For example: the use of typing programs to support pupils with fine motor development. The progression of skills is clearly laid out in our progression document, outlining which skills are built upon in each year group. This is separated into each of the three key areas of computing with e-safety running as a thread through all areas, ensuring continuity is established throughout.  

Teachers across the year groups discuss internet use when using online resources with pupils and our PSHE curriculum delivered through ‘Jigsaw’ has a thread focused on online relationships, starting from year 2. Each year group also teaches a discrete computing safety unit at the beginning of each year.

Pupils with SEND needs are scaffolded for to support access to the curriculum. This varies across all year groups from visual cards to help a child to put their program in order before they engage with their Bee-Bot; to a screen shotted ‘how to’ to help them to take small step to achieve a given goal. We then utilise these resources to support our lower attaining learners as well to help support them to make more rapid progress.

Intended impact:

• By the end of KS2, children will be confident users of technology, able to use it safely to accomplish a wide variety of goals, both at home and in school.
• Children will have a secure and comprehensive knowledge of the implications of digital systems.  This is important in a society where technology is rapidly evolving.
• Children will have a competent understanding of how technology works.  We want on our children to understand the consequences of using the internet and that they are also aware of how to keep themselves safe online.
• They will have developed skills to express themselves and be creative using digital media and apply their skills in computing to different challenges both socially and academically.
• As our children become more confident in their abilities in computing, they will become more independent and key life skills such as problem-solving, logical thinking and self-evaluation become second nature.
• A celebration of learning for each year group which demonstrates progression across the school; through use of display boards located around school and in the Computer Suite.