Computing

Computing Curriculum Statement 2023-2024

As with the whole curriculum at Leys Primary School, Computing prioritises children’s acquisition of Key Knowledge skills and experiences, in a range of well-considered cross-curricular and contextualised contexts.

Intent

Technology is everywhere and plays a pivotal part in the lives of pupils. Therefore, we model and educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and safely.  Learners will have the opportunity to gain an understanding of computational systems of all kinds, whether or not they include computers.
 

By the time they leave Leys Primary School, children will have gained key knowledge and skills in the three main areas of the computing curriculum: computer science (programming and understanding how digital systems work), information technology (using computer systems to store, retrieve and send information) and digital literacy (evaluating digital content and using technology safely and respectfully). The objectives within each strand support the development of learning across the key stages, ensuring a solid grounding for future learning and beyond.

Implementation

 We implement a curriculum which is progressive throughout the whole school and which is in line with the National Curriculum 2014 Primary requirements.  Computing is taught using a blocked curriculum approach, which is, structured around six half-termly units of work per year group.  This ensures children are able to develop depth in their knowledge and skills over the duration of each of their computing topics. Teachers ‘Teach Computing’ a government funded  scheme, as a starting point for the planning of  computing lessons, which are richly contextualised with other subjects and topics covered in our school. Knowledge, skills and vocabulary are mapped across each topic and year group to ensure systematic progression.

Children have access to a wide range of resources to support their learning in computing.  This includes but not limited to a fully equipped computing suite for 30 children;  two trolleys - one with a set of tablets and the other with a class set of Chromebooks; Pro-bots, Micro: bits, crumble controller kits and Lego Spike kits.  This ensures that all year groups have the opportunity to use a range of devices and programs for many purposes across the wider curriculum, as well as in discrete computing lessons. Children also have access to software that they need to develop knowledge and skills of digital systems and their applications. 

Furthermore, the implementation of the curriculum also ensures a balanced coverage of computer science, information technology and digital literacy. The children will have experiences of all three strands in each year group, but the subject knowledge imparted becomes increasingly specific and in depth, with more complex skills being taught, thus ensuring that learning is built upon. For example, children in Key Stage 1 learn what algorithms are, which leads them to the design stage of programming in Key Stage 2, where they design, write and debug programs, explaining the thinking behind their algorithms.

Impact

Our Computing Curriculum is a fun, engaging, and high-quality education, which is planned to demonstrate progression, build on, and embed current skills. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills in the different computational components and discreet vocabulary progression within units of work.

Look below to see the topics that are covered in each year group.

• BBC Education Computing  A highly informative offering about coding/programming from the BBC. Recommended for the grown-ups.

• Lightbot  A fun introduction to the concept of programming.

• CODE.org  A collection of online resources to encourage coding. Lots of fun activities here.

• BotLogic  A fun site with programming challenges which get more complex as they're completed.

• Nickelodeon Code-It website  Some coding fun with lots of your favourite Nick characters.

• Rapid Router A block based series of programming challenges to get those groceries delivered. Developed by Ocado.

• Scratch  Scratch and the all new Scratch 3 are fantastic free resources designed to teach the basics of programming.

• Blockly  A block-based programming environment similar to Scratch.