Computing
At Earlsmead Primary School, 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.
Intent
At Earlsmead 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 to model positive use. We recognise that the best prevention for a lot of issues we currently see with technology 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.
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 have Floor Books for computing, which contain evidence of the breadth of student's learning within each lesson, including the objectives covered, student's responses to the questions, 'what did I learn today?' and 'why did we learn this?' and evidence of the lesson activity through pictures. We also look for evidence digitally through tools like Google Drive Google Classroom 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.
Implementation
At Earlsmead, computing is taught in two ways: through discreet computing lessons and embedded across the curriculum.
The computing curriculum is delivered through our own scheme of work: based initially on the National Centre for Computing Education scheme of work. Every lesson in our scheme has been individually planned so that it can be effectively taught using the infrastructure we have in place at school and so that it can meet the needs of all our pupils.
Our scheme has been closely referenced against the 2014 National Curriculum attainment targets in order to ensure progression and coverage. Having discreet lessons means that the children are able to develop depth in their knowledge and skills over the duration of each of their computing units, and linking to the wider curriculum allows students to reinforce their understanding of computing concepts through real world application.
Our computing curriculum covers the following areas: computing systems and networks (including technology around us and sharing information), creating media (including animation, green screen technology and, taking pictures and videos) data and information (including the use of GSuite software such as Forms and Sheets) and programming (Beebots, Sam Labs and Sphero). E-safety is embedded in every unit, encouraging the responsible use of technology. For more information on e-safety please see our Internet Safety page.
All year groups in KS1, and each class in KS2 have their own trolley of Chromebooks for use across the curriculum. Each student has their own unique account name and password which gives them access to productivity applications that include Google Classroom and Google Drive.
