Our Statement of Intent is ‘Unlocking Potential, Transforming lives’. This means that we want to unlock the potential and transform the lives of all members of our school community.

For our children, this may be removing barriers to ensure they approach their secondary education, equipped socially, emotionally and academically; for others it may be unlocking a hidden music skill which shapes their future.

For our staff, this may be providing opportunities to help them progress professionally.

For our parents, this may be removing barriers to help them access adult education.

For our wider community, this may be helping them to attend a school social event to prevent loneliness and encourage volunteering at future events.

To enable us to achieve the above, all members of the school adhere to the Core Values of:

• Safety
• Ready to Learn
• Working Together
• High Expectations
• Integrity in all that we do.

Intent

At St. Margaret’s Primary Academy, the computing curriculum aims to prepare pupils for the challenges and opportunities offered by a world where work and leisure activities are rapidly being transformed by technological change. Through our computing curriculum, pupils will become skilled in:

• Using computing systems and networks
• Programming
• Algorithms
• Design and development
• Data and information
• Creating media
• Design and improvement
• The effective use of tools
• Understanding the impact of technology
• Safety and security.

Through varied and repeated opportunities to apply this knowledge, they will become highly skilled in analysing problems in computational terms and writing computer programmes in order to solve them. Information technology will give pupils opportunities to develop knowledge, skills and understanding in the application of computer systems. They will be able to use it to analytically solve real-world problems, find things out, create, exchange and share information and evaluate and modify work. Pupils will become digitally literate, able to use technology creatively, safely, respectfully and responsibly; they will be prepared to competently take part in the digital world of the present and the future.

Online Safety

At St. Margaret’s Primary Academy, we are committed to developing digital wisdom in our pupils in order to prepare them for life in an increasingly digital world. Therefore, a strong focus is placed on how to use technology safely and responsibly through the teaching of digital skills, of how technology is used and of how pupils can apply the use of technology in contexts that they can relate to. 

Implementation

Computing is taught using Teach Computing, National Centre for Computing Education, which ensures a balanced coverage of computing systems and networks, programming, data and information and creating media.

The units for Key Stages 1 and 2 are based on a spiral curriculum. This means that each of the themes is revisited regularly (at least once in each year group), and pupils revisit each theme through a new unit that consolidates and builds on prior learning within that theme. This style of curriculum design reduces the amount of knowledge lost through forgetting, as topics are revisited yearly. It also ensures that connections are made even if different teachers are teaching the units within a theme in consecutive years.

Within the Teach Computing Curriculum, every year group learns through units within the same four themes, which combine the ten strands of the National Centre for Computing Education’s taxonomy

The Teach Computing Curriculum has been written to support all pupils. Each lesson is sequenced so that it builds on the learning from the previous lesson, and where appropriate, activities are scaffolded so that all pupils can succeed and thrive. Scaffolded activities provide pupils with extra resources, such as visual prompts, to reach the same learning goals as the rest of the class. Exploratory tasks foster a deeper understanding of a concept, encouraging pupils to apply their learning in different contexts and make connections with other learning experiences.

As well as scaffolded activities, embedded within the lessons are a range of pedagogical strategies (listed at the end of this document), which support making computing topics more accessible.

Online Safety

The unit overviews for each unit show the links between the content of the lessons and the national curriculum and Education for a Connected World framework. These references have been provided to show where aspects relating to online safety, or digital citizenship, are covered within the Teach Computing Curriculum.

Impact

Our Computing curriculum is planned so that pupils have a good understanding of the computing concepts, knowledge, skills and vocabulary that run through the four themes: Computing Systems and Networks, Programming, Data and Information, and Creating Media. This aims to ensure they achieve age related attainment at the end of each Key Stage, preparing them for the next stage of education.

Every lesson includes formative assessment opportunities for teachers to use. These opportunities are listed in the lesson plan and are included to ensure that misconceptions are recognised and addressed if they occur. They vary from teacher observation or questioning, to marked activities.

Half-termly assessment will take place to track children’s progress against age related expectations for Computing.