Computing

Computing at St Mary’s

Intent

At St Mary’s Junior school, we recognise that technology is everywhere. During the Covid-19 pandemic, technology became a lifeline for many of our families – it enabled us to source food, socialise, and gave our pupils access to a remote education. Since then, we are continuing to see technology play a pivotal part in our children’s lives.

It is therefore our priority to educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and safely. We intend for our pupils to be creators, not consumers, and our broad curriculum (based on the Kapow scheme) encompasses computer science, information technology and digital literacy to reflect this. We recognise that the best prevention for a lot of issues we currently see with technology/social media is through education.

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 with the opportunity for pupils to apply their knowledge creatively which will in turn help our pupils become skilful computer scientists. We encourage staff at St Mary’s to embed computing across the whole curriculum to make learning creative and accessible. By Year 6, we intend for children have the independence and confidence to safely choose the best tool, app or software to fulfil tasks and challenges, both set by teachers and beyond.

Implementation

We follow a broad and balanced Computing curriculum that builds on previous learning and provides both support and challenge for learners. We ensure that both in lower and upper Key Stage 2, children explore:

• Online safety
• Creating media
• Data handling
• Programming
• Networks and the internet
• History of computers

All work completed in Computing lessons is saved to Google Classrooms or a similar password-protected platform (such a Scratch), where children are able to compare work and gain teacher feedback. This allows teachers to look at pupils’ outcomes and assess learning over time, as they gain skills and knowledge.

Impact

We encourage our children to enjoy and value the curriculum we deliver. We want learners to discuss, reflect and appreciate the impact Computing has on their learning, development and well- being. Finding the right balance with technology is key to an effective education and a healthy life-style. We know that the way we implement computing helps children realise the need for the right balance and one they can continue to build on in their next stage of education and beyond.

Progress of our computing curriculum is demonstrated through outcomes, the record of coverage in the process of achieving these outcomes, and our Computing assessment sheets, to ensure that progression of skills is taking place.

Please see below for our Computing LTP (Spring/Summer 22) and an example of what our computing units look like in the classroom. 

Online safety knowledge organisers:

We Are Technicians Knowledge Organisers: