Computing

'Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.'

Ephesians 4:29

Introduction

At St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School, we want every child to be happy and enthusiastic learners of Computing, and to be eager to achieve their very best in order to fulfil their God-given talents. We firmly believe that the recipe for success is high quality teaching in Computing, which is central to the life of our happy, caring school.

Intent

At St Mary’s, we want pupils 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 (especially social media) to model positive use. We recognise that the best prevention for many issues we currently see with technology/social media is through education. Building our knowledge in this subject will allow pupils to effectively demonstrate their learning through creative use of technology. 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 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 Upper Key Stage 2, children have the independence and confidence to choose the best tool to fulfil the task and challenge set by teachers.

Implementation

At St Mary’s we follow ‘Purple Mash’ - a clear and comprehensive scheme of work in line with the National Curriculum where teaching and learning shows progression across all key stages within the strands of Computing.

Staff follow a comprehensive progression document to best embed and cover every element of the computing curriculum. The knowledge/skills statements build year on year to deepen and challenge our learners.

Learning covers the following three areas:

• Computer Science
• Information Technology
• Digital Literacy

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 well-being. Finding the right balance with technology is key to an effective education and a healthy life-style. We feel 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. 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 Purple Mash and observing learning regularly. Progress of our computing curriculum is demonstrated through outcomes and the record of coverage in the process of achieving these outcomes.

Cultural Capital

Technology moves fast.  We need to equip the children of St Mary’s with a foundational understanding of the world around them, an intellectual toolbox that equips them to deal with successive waves of technology. The current curriculum is focused on ideas and principles.  Programming teaches understanding and reasoning skills that are needed by everyone from business innovators to scientists and those in the tech world.

British Values

The computing curriculum promotes the British values of tolerance and resilience on a daily basis through problem solving and understanding of complex concepts, encouraging students to persevere and try different methods to arrive at a correct solution. Teamwork underpins the schemes of learning. Students work together in all areas of the computing curriculum to support each other and build mutual respect for one another. Students are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them in all computing lessons. This fosters confidence and builds self-esteem, it encourages students to take risks and become lifelong learners whilst using their computational thinking skills in all aspects of life.