St Margaret's CE Primary School

Computing

Importance of computing

Computing is a vital skill for life and the curriculum helps prepare children for the future. Technology plays a part throughout our lives and so it is important they can use it effectively. Technology and the internet/social media plays a big part in their lives already.

We now all use our devices more than ever and children are becoming a lot more competent using them and communicating through them. We need to make sure they are skilled and protected when doing this and so both home and school need to work together to keep children safe and happy. The best way to do this is through communication - so children know they can speak to trusted adults about what they are doing on technology and anything they come across. It isn't just about having controls on the internet. There is a range of websites and organisations at the bottom of the page to help you do this. 

 Intent

It is our intent for all children at St Margaret’s to be able to confidently, safely and competently use a range of technology and experience success with the use of information technology. To ensure this they will:

• Know how to use technology safely, respectfully and responsibly; including keeping personal information private, recognising acceptable/unacceptable behaviour and how to report concerns about content or contact.

• Understand how computer networks work and how they can be utilised to enhance and improve communication and collaboration
• Design and create a range of content using a variety of software and devices that will allow them to collate, analyse and evaluate how they present it
• Design, write and debug programs to achieve against set goals, considering variables and various forms of input and output.
• Understand how to effectively use search technologies and evaluate the digital content as trustworthy
• Develop logic and reason when it comes to computational thinking; planning out solutions to problems

Implementation

We use the National Centre for computing for education to ensure that learning covers the national curriculum. The units allow for the skills that we want children to develop to become successful users of information technology. We will achieve this by:

• Explicitly teaching children about e-safety: what to do if they feel worried; how to report any issues they experience online; how to be responsible online users.
• Where possible we link computing to other subject areas to ensure relevance and context.
• Learning is scaffolded to support essential and age appropriate learning.
• Every child will have the opportunity to explore a variety of software and hardware and develop their creativity with presenting their work in a variety of ways using various programmes.
• Important and influential people in the world of IT will be looked at and talked about.
• Lessons are predominantly held in the IT suite to allow for practical, exploratory learning and are held weekly to allow for revisiting learning and embedding important concepts.
• Children are encouraged to share their learning with their peers, evaluate others and their own work and take on board feedback for improvements.
• Collaboration is encouraged and children work together to produce high quality outcomes 
• Subject specific vocabulary is explicitly taught to allow children to develop their understanding of information technology
• Units are designed to progress children’s computational thinking and develop their analysis, logical reasoning and problem-solving skills 

Impact

By the time children leave our school, they should have a clear understanding of how to keep themselves and others safe online. They will have experienced the use of a variety of different software and hardware and have the ability to choose appropriate programs to present content for a specific need. They will understand and be able to discuss and evaluate work suggesting improvements to ensure the outcome meets the brief. They will be able to design and create programs for use by others and seek out any problems that they can resolve. They will have developed an understanding of how technologies can be used to enhance our learning and collaboration with others.

Information and organisations providing support to parents:

Parent info

Parent Info is a free service that shares articles, tips, expert advice and resources designed to help parents keep up with what their children are doing on-line. Parent Info is a collaboration between CEOP and Parent Zone.
https://parentzone.org.uk/

Also see

NSPCC keeping children safe online

Safety Net online safety

Think u know