Intent

At Joseph Turner Primary School, our aim is to provide a high quality and broad computing education, which encourages children to use problem solving and computational thinking skills. The computing curriculum is designed to provide children with key knowledge on how computers and computer systems work and how everyday programs are designed and programmed. With our vast variety of technology in school, children will have the opportunity to rehearse skills and understand the benefit of using these across the curriculum.

By the time pupils leave Joseph Turner, children will have gained knowledge in the three main areas of computing. Children will program and understand digital systems during computer science, they will use computer systems to store and retrieve information within the information technology strand and when learning about digital literacy they will evaluate digital content and develop skills to use technology safely and responsibly.

Online safety is of high importance across the school and all staff have a responsibility to e-safety. Staff receive annual e-safety training to refresh them on current issues and their responsibilities within school. We ensure we equip children with the knowledge, understanding and skills to use technology safely and responsibly by providing high quality teaching and discussion opportunities during learning.

Implementation

At Joseph Turner, computing is taught in half termly units. These consist of 6 lessons which are taught weekly for 1 hour. This ensures children are able to rehearse and apply debugging skills to deepen their learning. Teachers use the ‘Switched On: Computing’ (SOC) scheme developed by Rising Stars which provides high quality resources and guidance to be used in lessons. Each unit is designed to have rich content and interesting themes. The units also provide many opportunities for cross curricular learning and assessment of computing skills in other subjects.

To enable us to deliver a high quality computing curriculum, we have invested in a range of technology. Our school has 6 class sets of iPads, a class set of laptops and a class set of Chromebooks which enables us to have 1:1 devices during lessons. The range of technology in schools gives the children the experience of how different devices and technology work and evaluate which tool is best for the task. Similar to this, we have a broad variety of software which can be used to deliver the curriculum which fits both our children’s needs as well as the delivery of SOC. Where possible, we try to use free software or applications so that children can access these on their devices outside of school to further their understanding.

The implementation of the curriculum ensures a balanced coverages of the three strands (computer science, information technology and digital literacy) across the school. The units are organised so that we focus on one strand as a school per half term to ensure staff can support each other in knowledge and CPD. This also ensure that skills are progressive and learning and software use is built upon each year.

As children progress through the school, subject knowledge deepens and expectations and outcomes are more complex to suit the national curriculum expectations for each key stage. For instance, children in Key Stage 1 learn that algorithms are the instructions and commands programs use. Moving into key stage 2, children continue into the design stage of programming where they design, write and debug programs whilst explaining the thinking behind their algorithms.

Impact

Our approach to the computing curriculum results in a fun, engaging and high quality computing education which sets children up for success in an ever developing technological world. The quality and progress in children’s learning is evident on Seesaw, an online digital platform for children to share and evaluate their own work and work of their peers. Evidence is also stored in our class computing log books and children access a central area which equips children with the skill of saving and retrieving documents, something adults to on a frequent basis.

Such evidence is used to feed into teacher’ assessment cycle which helps them deliver lesson appropriate to the children’s needs and development. This enables teachers to address misconceptions and gaps in knowledge promptly and effectively ensuring all pupils make good progress.

At Joseph Turner Primary School we use the Rising Stars 'Switched on Computing' scheme to help structure our computing curriculum.

Our computing curriculum is divided into 4  key areas. These are:

Computer Science

Computer Science looks at how things work. We explore coding, creating programs, spotting errors in code and even how some of our favourite games are programmed!

Digital Literacy

Digital literacy is how we communicate using technology. Whether we are sending an email or creating a PowerPoint, we are communicating ideas in different ways. We look at what the Internet is and how  search engines work to give us reliable results.

Information Technology

Here we learn about the how the 'office' applications work with text, multimedia presentations and data analysis. We will look at photography, animation and video editing and even how some virtual reality works. 

Online Safety

We learn about our responsibility to be role models in the digital world. Our digital footprint is everything we do online and we will develop skills so we can be safe when using technology.

We're very lucky to have a range of devices and technology in school which are used not only in computing but across the curriculum to ensure we understand how technology is an evolving part of everyday tasks.

Use the links below to see what units each year group cover within computing:

Cultural Capital

In computing, pupils develop their cultural capital through spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

● Spiritual: pupils develop their spirituality through exploring creativity and imagination in the design and construction of digital products. Pupils’ self-esteem is promoted through the presentation of work to others. Pupils explore how ideas in computing have inspired others and they create digital products, which incorporate their own beliefs.

● Moral: pupils develop morally through the encouragement of good etiquette when using digital technology including mobile devices and with due regard to online safety. In Computing, we encourage respect for other’s views and opinions as well as developing respect for the computer equipment pupils’ use and how this affects others. In addition, pupils learn respect in the use of digital equipment and its impact on the environment. Pupils also explore the promotion of moral issues through the use of digital products. Our local neighbourbood PCSO team attend school regularly to speak to pupils about the consequences of poor behaviour online.

● Social: pupils are encouraged to assist one another in problem-solving. In Computing, pupils are encouraged to model appropriate social behaviours in the classroom including listening whilst others are talking and generally interacting as a caring community. We also encourage good practice and respect in the use of social networking.

● Cultural: Encourage the sensible use of digital technology in the classroom  given that pupils are currently living in a digital world. We also empower pupils to apply their digital literacy skills and knowledge to the wider curriculum and acknowledge links between subjects such as the use of coordinates in programming and their connections with maths and geography. We also aim to regularly take Upper Key Stage 2 children to local secondary schools to view Computing equipment and how the curriculum progresses through school.