Intent
At Spring Meadow we equip our children to thrive in a rapidly changing digital world by providing a computing curriculum that is designed to build upon previously learnt language, knowledge and skills from Nursery up to Year two. Our children will dive deeper into their knowledge and spark their creativity for computing as each lesson, term and year progresses. The curriculum has been organised to enable each child to strengthen their independence when using technology while also allowing them to test their resilience through diverse challenges that consistently incorporate the importance of kindness and inclusivity. When children leave Spring Meadow they will have mastered the statutory requirements of the National Curriculum for computing: computer science, information technology and digital literacy.
At Spring Meadow, through our computing curriculum we prepare our students to be well equipped, not only with the skills and knowledge to use technology effectively and for their own benefit, but more importantly to use it safely. The biggest impact the computing curriculum has on our children is that they understand how to keep themselves safe online. As a result, our children leave Spring Meadow as independent, knowledgeable, creative resilient and kind citizens capable of interacting safely in a digital world.
Implementation
At Spring Meadow our computing curriculum has been deliberately planned so each key area in the computing curriculum will be cyclical, taught with increasing depth and built upon using prior knowledge using the Kapow scheme of work. Pupils will revisit each of the five key areas (computing systems and networks, Programming, Creating Media, Data handling, and Online safety) throughout their time from Nursery to Year Two.
As each key area is introduced in EYFS our children have the opportunity to develop computing knowledge and independence at an early age through continuous provision as they learn about the main parts of a computer, importance of instructions, exploring hardware such as cameras, experimenting with programmable toys and finally they are introduced to sorting data via pictograms. Children will build confidence in technology in EYFS which will in turn will solidify a foundation from which they can begin learning in greater depth in Key Stage One.
By Year 1 our children will be improving their mouse skills on both laptop and desktop computers as well as understanding algorithms by diving deeper into programming programmable toys. Through exploration and independence children will be able to create media via Microsoft Office 365 and use this knowledge to display data via and pictographs, web charts and branch data bases. The cyclical nature of our curriculum will allow our children to make progress from their starting points and allow them the ability to continue this progress into Year two.
By the end of Key stage One, our Year Two children will have built upon these each of the five key areas and explored them with greater depth. As they will begin to create stop motion media via tablet devices and dive deep into data handing as they research and interpret astronauts data from the International Space Station sparking the wonder and awe of learning.
Impact
The key knowledge, skills and language are revisited throughout children’s learning using mini plenaries, key assessment questioning and recaps to allow teachers to be responsive to the children’s learning. At the end of a unit of work, our children’s accumulated computing knowledge is assessed which may take the form of assessing an end of unit task or assessing their knowledge against the learning objectives. The computing subject leader monitors the teaching and learning of computing throughout the year through learning walks, outcome scrutinies and discussions with children from across the school to find out what they enjoy and know about in computing. This evaluation of the teaching and learning of computing within the school informs them of next steps to be taken in further raising standards in computing.
The children at Spring Meadow are digitally literate and are able to join the rest of the world on its digital platform. They are equipped, not only with the skills and knowledge to use technology effectively and for their own benefit, but more importantly – safely. The biggest impact the computing curriculum has on our children is that they understand how to use technology independently as well as the awareness of how to keep themselves safe online. As a result, children are more independent and develop key life skills such as problem-solving, logical thinking and self-regulation.
