At our school, we want pupils to be masters of technology and not slaves to it. Technology is changing the lives of everyone. Through teaching computing, we equip our children to participate in a rapidly changing world where work and leisure activities are increasingly transformed by technology, raising their aspiration and opening possibilities for the future.
It is our intention to enable children to find, explore, analyse, exchange and present information. We also focus on developing the skills necessary for children to be able to use information in an effective way preparing them well for the rest of their school life and beyond. Therefore, we want to model and educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and safely. We recognise that the best prevention for a lot of issues we currently see with technology/social media is through education. Computing skills are a major factor in enabling children to be confident, creative and independent learners and it is our intention that children have every opportunity available to allow them to achieve this, allowing them to develop our PRIDE values. 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, by the end of Upper Key Stage 2, children will have the independence and confidence to choose the best tool to fulfil the task and challenge set by teachers or through the rest of their lives.
We encourage our children to enjoy and value the curriculum we deliver. We constantly emphasise the WHY behind their learning and not just the HOW. Learners are encouraged and given opportunities 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 lifestyle. 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 tools like Microsoft Teams, saving work to a shared pupil server, 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.
