Computing

Intent

Starting in the EYFS we provide high quality teaching to develop the skills that will enable children to embrace and utilise new technology in a socially responsible and safe way in order to flourish. We aim for all children to leave Lyne and Longcross as creators rather than consumers of technology in order to understand and change the world. Our goal is for children to build upon their knowledge of computing year by year, and are encouraged to analyse problems, evaluate their work and take responsibility at every level.

We want our pupils to be able to operate in the 21st century workplace and we want them to know the career opportunities that will be open to them if they study computing.

We want children to become autonomous, independent users of computing technologies, making connections from previous learning, gaining confidence and enjoyment from their activities.

We want the use of technology to support learning across the entire curriculum and to ensure that our curriculum is accessible to every child. Not only do we want them to be digitally literate and competent end-users of technology but through our computer science lessons we want them to develop curiosity, creativity, resilience and problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

We want our pupils to have a breadth of experience to develop their understanding of themselves as individuals within their community but also as members of a wider global community and as responsible digital citizens.

Implementation

A comprehensive and clear skills progression for Computing across the school has been created for staff to follow, and best embed and cover all areas of the Computing curriculum. The knowledge and skills statements are built upon year by year, so that children’s understanding is constantly deepened and learners are being challenged.

In a constantly developing digital world, there is always opportunity to use technology to develop and enhance learning across the curriculum. Technology can be embedded within a wide variety of subjects and the children therefore have the opportunity to apply the skills that they have learnt. These cross curricular opportunities allow for more engaging, creative lessons and opportunities for children to practically apply their learning.

Our whole school curriculum ensures that there are countless opportunities and examples for cross-curricular usage of technology. The aim is to give children a relevant, purposeful way to make use of their digital skills across all areas. Key Stage 2 children have easy access to a bank of tablets, enabling this cross curricular approach whilst children in Key Stage 1 and EFYS have a range of resources including Bee-Bots, Blue-Bots, Rugged Racers and Scratch Tactile Readers.

Our online curriculum at Lyne and Longcross is informed by the needs of our pupils. Each year, the children complete a survey which looks at misconceptions within online safety learning. It helps us to effectively understand usage and some challenges faced by the technology used. This is then woven into our online safety curriculum, using the government’s ‘Education for a Connected World Framework'. Our key focus is to ensure we are equipping the children at Lyne and Longcross Primary School with the key digital literacy skills to ensure that they will go on thrive in our ever-connected technical world.

This half term, Year 4 have been learning how to edit photos. They have been using the Be Funky website to rotate, crop and colour change their images.