Year 5

Gender Balance in Computing Study

NC: Pupils are responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology. 

NC: Pupils select, use and combine a variety of software (including internet services) on a range of digital devices to design and create a range of programs, systems and content that accomplish given goals, including collecting, analysing, evaluating and presenting data and information 

In Autumn in Computing we took part in an interesting study and course of learning about careers in Technology. This was part of the WISE Diversity-Inclusion-Change Campaign and the focus was on gender and the lack of women who take up a STEM career. We did a questionnaire about attitudes at the beginning of the term and another one at the end to compare responses. The learning included discussions about technology, potential career paths using maths, engineering, computing, science and technology. We looked at our own personality preferences and which careers might suit those traits and concluded with meeting an interesting role model from industry to whom we listened to and asked questions. This was a valuable oportunity to broaden our children's minds and provide  useful insights to the world of work as well as information for the researchers. It will be interesting to see if our children and especially girls take up careers in STEM subjects as a result of this study and all the other work we do here at WHA. 

The Gender Balance in Computing research programme is the largest national effort to date to explore ways to encourage more girls and young women to engage with computing. The research programme comprises a number of interventions relating to four different research areas. 

NC:

Pupils design, write and debug programs that accomplish specific goals, including controlling or simulating physical systems; solve problems by decomposing them into smaller parts

Pupils use sequence, selection, and repetition in programs; work with variables and various forms of input and output

Pupils use logical reasoning to explain how some simple algorithms work and to detect and correct errors in algorithms and programs 

NC: Pupils select, use and combine a variety of software (including internet services) on a range of digital devices to design and create a range of programs, systems and content that accomplish given goals, including collecting, analysing, evaluating and presenting data and information 

NC: use technology safely, respectfully and responsibly; recognise acceptable/unacceptable behaviour; identify a range of ways to report concerns about content and contact. 

Summer 1 we refreshed our knowlege of Online Safety and being Good Digital Citizens. We used the Be Internet Legends resources from Google and spnt a week focusing on: being Sharp, Alert, Secure, Kind and Brave.

Be Alert - Check It's For Real

We learned about phishing, SCAMS and what to look out for to ensure we are using safe and secure websites. We also had a discussion about whether Fake News is Funny or Foul having looked at various websites including trying to spot whether images were real or 'photoshoped' and the BBC News - Reality Check to see how they verify whether information is credible.

Below are the results of an Exit Ticket test using Socrative to see what has been learned during this unit.

Examples of children's work completed as a conclusion to Be Internet Legends unit and as assessment of Online Safety knowledge and understanding.