Computing
Intent
At St Joseph’s we strive to prepare our children for a rapidly changing world through the use of technology. Technology is everywhere and will play a pivotal part in students' lives. Therefore, we want to model and educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and safely.
We want our pupils to be creators not consumers and our broad curriculum encompassing computer science, information technology and digital literacy reflects this.
Implementation
The Connected Curriculum for Computing is delivered in manageable blocks, providing pupils with all of the essential elements of the computing curriculum and ensuring that they are well-prepared for the digital world of today and tomorrow.
Hi-Impact Consultancy
We work closely with Hi-Impact to ensure our use of technology is ‘current’ and shows clear progression across the school.
Hi-Impact regularly provides children with many high quality workshops throughout the year. These workshops provide children with opportunities to use the latest technology such as virtual reality (VR) headsets and programmable robots.
Information Technology and Digital Literacy
Pupils will delve into five carefully crafted blocks of lessons over the course of each year, focusing on key elements of information technology and digital literacy. This ensures that pupils receive regular exposure to these important areas of the curriculum. The benefit of the Connected Curriculum lies in its progressive nature. Each block builds upon the knowledge and skills acquired in previous years but is presented in a more age-appropriate manner, utilising various apps and technologies that resonate with pupils of different ages. This approach allows for the gradual advancement and development of more complex concepts and knowledge. Each unit is thoughtfully structured to equip pupils with the component knowledge they need to confidently tackle more sophisticated computing tasks. The goal is to make the learning journey enjoyable, manageable, and effective.
Computer Science
Over the course of each year there are three blocks of engaging lessons for our pupils. Within each block are either three or four lessons packed with exciting content.
The first two terms of the year are dedicated to covering essential key concepts and knowledge in computer science. This allows our pupils to build a strong foundation in this rapidly evolving field. As they progress to the summer term, we incorporate physical computing into the curriculum. Pupils can then apply the skills learned in the previous blocks, embedding their learning in a hands-on, practical way.
The program is designed to gradually deepen pupils' understanding of coding concepts over the years. For example, in Year 3 we start with simple 'count-controlled' and 'forever' loops. In Year 4, we revisit this and introduce 'nested loops' to challenge pupils further. By Year 5, pupils delve into more complex nested loops and are introduced conditional loops like 'if/else' and 'until'. All of these concepts are then consolidated and mastered in Year 6.
Throughout the sequence of lessons there is an emphasis in logical reasoning and computational thinking skills, which are essential skills for pupils to develop to become problem-solvers and confident coders.
Digital Literacy and Online Safety
As our children already use technology in such a variety of ways and on a variety of platforms, E-Safety is becoming a vital part of our curriculum. It is increasingly difficult as parents to keep up with the rapidly changing apps/ games and platforms so it is important we ensure pupils are prepared to use technology safely under a variety of circumstances. To achieve this, pupils receive a dedicated lesson each half term that is specifically centred around one of the 8 themes of Education for a Connected World. These lessons serve as an introduction to the various issues they will explore in their information technology or digital literacy units that term. To deliver these high-quality lessons, we use the Common Sense Media platform.
Impact
The Connected Curriculum prepares pupils to navigate the digital world responsibly and confidently. Education for a Connected World (widely recognised as the best practice guide for digital citizenship education) was developed by the UK Government working group, UK Council for Internet Safety (UKCIS), and is modelled after the six topics of digital citizenship education developed by Common Sense Education, a respected authority in the field.
We also promote the #WakeUpWednesday initiative published each week by The National College using our ClassDojo School Page. This equips parents and carers with colourful, easy-to-follow and insightful guides to aspects of the digital universe which is currently causing concern; outlining related risks and suggesting ways to help children avoid them.
What Computing looks like in EYFS
Computing and technology are important subjects to deliver to EYFS children. A well planned computing curriculum in the EYFS ensures that children enter Year 1 with a strong foundation of key skills and knowledge.
Computing lessons in the EYFS also ensure that children develop coordination skills, listening skills, problem-solving abilities and questioning — as well as improving subject knowledge and skills across the seven areas of learning.
With the technology strand being removed from the EYFS curriculum, our IT consultancy (hi-impact) developed a set of skills and experiences for EYFS which will prepare the children for Computing in KS1. This directly informed the EYFS curriculum long term documents compiled by EYFS teachers and the Computing Subject Lead.
Many of the activities apply to the rest of the EYFS curriculum. For example, taking photographs of everyday objects links to science, reading digital books and using the navigation buttons to move forwards and backwards. Using paint and drawing programs to develop mark making and fine motor skills. Using Robots to develop directional language, recognise common symbols etc.
With reference to the hi-impact planning we will be providing students with opportunities to demonstrate the relevant Early Learning Goals (ELGs) for each area of learning.
There are five units to use across the whole year which include: digital literacy, computer science, maths, phonics, celebrations and a variety of topic specific, technology and computing enhancements.