Intent

As a school, we embrace the national vision for Computing and appreciate that, to achieve this, pupils must have access to a curriculum which is ‘balanced and broadly based’ but has computer science at its core. As a result, children will learn the key computing skills of selection, repetition and sequencing.

Our aim is to produce learners who are confident, discerning and effective users of technology and who also have a good understanding of computers and how computer systems work, and how they are designed and programmed. 

We strive to achieve this aim by:

• Supporting all children in using technology with purpose and enjoyment.
• Demonstrating how ubiquitous technology is to every stage of our lives.
• Meeting, and building on the minimum requirement set out in the National Curriculum as fully as possible and helping all children to achieve the highest possible standards of achievement.
• Helping all children to develop the underlying skills and capability which is essential to developing computing capability (such as problem solving, perseverance, learning from mistakes) and applying them elsewhere.
• Helping all children to develop the necessary skills to exploit the potential of technology and to become autonomous and discerning users.
• Helping all children to evaluate the benefits and risks of technology, its impact on society and how to manage their use of it safely and respectfully.
• Using technology to develop partnerships beyond the school.
• Celebrating success in the use of technology.

Implementation

When delivering the computing teaching units, teachers are expected to employ a range of strategies and to use their professional judgement to decide on the most appropriate teaching and learning style for the class, groups of pupils or individual pupils. Our planning is informed by the ‘Switched On Computing’ scheme of work as it covers a very broad range of skills and builds on children’s learning in focussed and manageable steps.

Approaches and strategies used may include:

• An ‘unplugged’ approach to develop their understanding of some of the underlying concepts of Computer Science
•  ‘Plugged’ activities which allow pupils to practise and demonstrate their levels of understanding.
• Using presentation technology to demonstrate something to a group of pupils or the whole class
• Leading a group or class discussion about the benefits and risks of technology
• Individual or paired work
• Collaborative group work
• Pupil led demonstrations / peer mentoring.  NB - Where one pupil is used to demonstrate or teach a skill to others, the teacher must feel confident that this is of benefit to all those involved.
• Differentiated activities planned to allow different levels of achievement by pupils or to incorporate possibilities for extension work.
• Teacher intervention where appropriate to support a pupil, reinforce an idea, teach a new point or challenge pupils’ thinking.

Each pupil’s access to technology varies dependent on the nature of the activity they are involved in; some activities benefit from prolonged access to a computer whilst other are best served with brief access to a digital device for a focussed purpose.  However, on average, pupils have 1 hour of allocated computing each week using a mixture of unplugged activities and the following technology:

• Laptops
• iPads 
• Programming equipment such as Beebots and BBC Microbits. 

In addition to discrete computing sessions, opportunities to develop and extend computing capability are provided in other curriculum areas and technology is used to support other subject areas.

All children have equality of access to appropriate technology to develop their personal computing capability. When children are working in groups, we endeavour to ensure that their hands-on experience is equitable.

The SENDCO and computing subject leader jointly advise teachers on examples of technology which can be provided to support individual children with particular physical, linguistic and educational needs, including gifted and talented pupils. Where appropriate, an external specialist is used to assess a child's specific needs.

Children with access to technology at home are encouraged to use it for educational benefit and Online Safety guidance is offered to both pupils and parents where appropriate.

Each Year Group also studies Online Safety as part of our PSHE Curriculum, provided by Twinkl. These lessons provide choice-based scenarios for the children to take part in and reflect upon the consequences of the characters’ actions. Furthermore, Landulph Primary actively partakes in Safer Internet Day each year and shines a light on developments in the online world for children to explore in the safety of our school.

Impact

We encourage our children to enjoy and value the curriculum we deliver. We will constantly ask the WHY behind their learning and not just the HOW. We want learners 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 life-style. 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 Teams, Onedrive and observing learning regularly. Progress of our computing curriculum is demonstrated through outcomes and the pupils’ increased confidence.

The Curriculum Leader for Computing is: David Finnimore