Intent

A high-quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world (National Curriculum 2014). At St Mary’s, we aim for children to become digitally literate to prepare them for the future workplace and ultimately become safe and active participants in a digital world. Children are equipped with skills that empower them to navigate a world where digital technology is continually evolving. These skills will enable them to analyse and solve problems in computational terms. All children will flourish and be KS3 ready at the end of Year 6, in order to further their computing skills at secondary school.

Implementation

In the Early Years at St Mary’s, discovery time enables children to explore a range of computing equipment and applications, including Chromebooks and Beebots, carefully selected to enable them to lay secure foundations that will be built upon in their future learning.

In Key Stage 1 and 2, the Teach Computing curriculum is used to deliver our Computing lessons. This curriculum was chosen as it is built around an innovative and progressive framework allowing for progression of skills from KS1 all the way through to KS4. Through using the Teach Computing curriculum, we ensure that children cover the three stands of Computing (information technology, digital literacy and computer science) thoroughly, resulting in responsible, competent, confident and creative users of technology.

Each year group covers six units per year (one per half term). The curriculum is delivered in “blocks” whereby children will spend one week each half term covering each unit in order to encourage depth of learning. As well as off-timetable activities for Safer Internet day each year, each class delivers one online safety lesson per week, using resources from the Project Evolve platform.

Computing is enriched at St Mary’s by providing children with opportunities to apply their computing skills across the curriculum. Pupils can also attend extra-curricular clubs such as ‘Coding Club’, become a digital leader and partake in computing-themed competitions and quizzes.