Computing

The intent of our Computing Curriculum is to:

• Develop competence in coding for a range of practical and imagined purposes and link this into other curriculum areas. 
• Use technology safely and respectfully to interact with others; understand the need to act within the law, maintaining moral and ethical integrity.  

• Develop an understanding of the connectedness of devices. 
• Foster the ability to communicate ideas effectively through the use of devices and applications across the curriculum.  
• Broaden the capability to collect, organise, manipulate and analyse digital resources effectively.
• To prepare our children for their Computing journey in Key Stages 3 & 4.

The Implementation of our Computing Curriculum:

Computing skills are taught across the school during weekly lessons in our computing suite; classes can also access iPads for cross-curricular work.  Our computer suite, which consists of 32 networked PC’s, enables the whole class to work independently.

We have interactive whiteboards in all classrooms and 2 sets of iPads that are timetabled for the whole school to use weekly to give our children the opportunity for independent and personalised learning.

Our computing curriculum is taken from the N.C.C.E. (The National Centre for Computing Excellence) and the Rising Stars Computing Curriculum. Our lessons have been sequenced so that they build 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.

The N.C.C.E. and Rising Stars Computing Curriculum are both structured into separate units.  The units are based on a spiral curriculum which means that each of the themes are 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.

As well as teaching computing skills, we deliver specific lessons on online safety across the school and encourage parents to support us in this by keeping vigilant at home. Although we teach specific online safety lessons and take part in the national safer internet day each year (SID Day), we monitor and address online safety concerns the whole year round and frequently talk about it so that our children understand that being safe online is a full time issue and not something to be forgotten.

The intended impact of our Computing Curriculum is that:

By the end of KS2, children will have developed the knowledge, skills and understanding to help them access and use a range of technology in a safe and creative way. Children will have developed skills that equip them to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world. Children’s skills will have progressed to enable them to not only have met the requirements of the National Curriculum, but to also enjoy using technology to develop knowledge and ideas, as well as express themselves safely and creatively as responsible citizens. As a school, we continually seek out ways to improve our teaching of computing by taking part in and using research.  

Please follow these links to our online safety pages.

Parent's online safety page

https://www.loweswong-jun.notts.sch.uk/online-safety/

Children's online safety page

https://www.loweswong-jun.notts.sch.uk/online-safety-1/

Miss Ford is our computing and online safety subject leader.