At St John Fisher, we recognise the importance of technology in our ever-changing world.
We want to give all of our pupils the equal opportunity to use digital technology to their advantage and to fully enhance their education. Covering the three strands of Computing, our children will be taught to understand digital literacy, information technology and computer science. This knowledge will give them the tools and understanding to reach potential opportunities that arise through digital technology.
Intent
Our intent is to develop technologically confident children, who are equipped to use computational thinking and creativity in our increasingly digital society. We want to encourage our pupils to be aware of the importance of technology in the world. We intend to support our children to be safe, active users of technology.
We will motivate learning by valuing the subject of computing, whilst teaching this discreetly and regularly. We want our children to have a rich understanding of the ambitious computing curriculum and describe their learning as fun and engaging. We must prepare our pupils with a firm foundation in the subject for future learning experiences, as well as a fast-paced, ever-changing technological world. Therefore, we intend to keep up-to-date with changes and ensure that our pupils are confident and enthusiastic learners with solid subject knowledge. All children, including disadvantaged pupils and pupils with SEND, will acquire the knowledge and cultural capital they need and they will receive scaffolding to aid their understanding of the key concepts if necessary.
The scope of our Computing Curriculum considers the knowledge and skills pupils gain at each stage. The content is broken down into components that have been sequenced in a logical progression for pupils to acquire the intended knowledge and skills. We intend for this knowledge to stick and the children will embed and then develop this through regularly revisiting prior learning.
Implementation
Computing at St John Fisher is taught as a discrete lesson every other week. Our Computing curriculum consists of The Teach Computing program, which provides coverage of all aspects of the National Curriculum. We have adopted this scheme of work, as it has been created by subject experts and is based on the latest pedagogical research. Our aim is to implement learning that is planned and sequenced clearly for teachers to aid the development of their pupil’s knowledge and skills. This also ensures consistency and supports the best outcomes for pupils.
In our school, the subject of Computing is presented in a range of ways to ensure key concepts are understood and knowledge is embedded. Across the school, Computing is structured to ensure learning is taught, unpacked and understood before moving on and children can build upon these skills and knowledge. Teachers include ‘retrieval’ questions at the beginning of every lesson to manage the great demands on cognitive load and address misconceptions. This helps the children transfer key knowledge to long-term memory.
We have access to Chromebooks, iPads and interactive whiteboard to enable all classes the opportunity to use a range of devices and programs. Our lessons also include ‘Unplugged’ activities, which support the deepening of understanding key concepts – as well as written evidence of learning to help aid monitoring and embed knowledge before using digital devices. In addition to the scheme, we have created a bespoke progression of Esafety for our school, which will be taught every half term. This ensures that Esafety knowledge is revisited and expanded to give the children a strong understanding of keeping safe online.
We aim to implement exciting learning opportunities in the computing curriculum. We encourage staff to invite businesses or companies that are in our local area and technologically aware or advanced to support our curriculum and provide opportunities, which could allow the children to absorb computing knowledge and gain skills in new ways.
