Curriculum Vision and Computing

All of the elements of our curriculum intent statement underpin our teaching of computing. However, computing provides particular opportunities for teaching the following aspects of our intent statement.

1. Strand 2b) iii) Develop a curriculum that encourages pupils to engage in social action and be courageous advocates for change in our local, national and global communities including engaging in global world links

Purpose and Aims of Computing

A high-quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world. Computing has deep links with mathematics, science, and design and technology, and provides insights into both natural and artificial systems. The core of computing is computer science, in which pupils are taught the principles of information and computation, how digital systems work, and how to put this knowledge to use through programming. Building on this knowledge and understanding, pupils are equipped to use information technology to create programs, systems and a range of content. Computing also ensures that pupils become digitally literate – able to use, and express themselves and develop their ideas through, information and communication technology – at a level suitable for the future workplace and as active participants in a digital world.

The national curriculum for computing aims to ensure that all pupils:

• Can understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation
• Can analyse problems in computational terms, and have repeated practical experience of writing computer programs in order to solve such problems
• Can evaluate and apply information technology, including new or unfamiliar technologies, analytically to solve problems
• Are responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology

Organisation of Teaching

The computing curriculum is carefully and coherently sequenced to enable our children to develop a growing knowledge of the themes outlined above. Pupils’ knowledge builds towards clearly defined end points so teachers and leaders know what we expect our pupils to achieve by the end of each topic, each year and each key stage. To meet the educational needs of our school community we have selected the following core knowledge concepts as a focus for our teaching. These are explored in increasing depth as pupils move through the school.

• Computer Science
• Information Technology
• Digital Literacy

Computing is taught as a discrete subject, though meaningful links are made with other subjects in our curriculum (such as creating digital storybooks written in literacy lessons). The topics we teach are outlined in the curriculum map for computing (see Appendix 1). This is published on our website.

To support the high quality knowledge rich teaching lessons we aim for, the school subscribes to ‘Purple Mash’ teaching scheme. All teaching materials are adapted to meet the requirements of our Christian vision and curriculum intent.