Earlham Primary School

Intent

At Earlham, children have the right to a high-quality computing education which equips them to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world as We want our pupils to be digitally literate at a level suitable for the future workplace as we believe that computing is increasingly a key skill for future employability.

At Earlham, we believe it isn’t just how we use computing, but to use computing and technology in a safe and responsible way. Our children are encouraged to use technology responsibly and carefully, being mindful of how their behaviour, words and actions can affect others. Through the use of many devices and tools used at ou school, Our children also gain further experience and skills of a wide range that further develops and enhances their learning opportunities, which enables them to use technology across a range of subjects e.g. once they know how to create and edit an eBook they can use this software to create an eBook for science or in other subjects 

Our computing curriculum is cross-curricular and is designed to give children opportunities to use a variety of tools in ways that support their thematic learning in other subjects e.g. Year 3 learn about databases using a database of Roman emperors, which links to their history unit about the Romans. Learning is also sequenced to ensure that children build on their previous knowledge in each of these four areas. 

At Earlham Primary School, we have developed our computing curriculum around four key areas: digital productivity, digital creativity, programming and online safety. Using laptops, iPads and interactive whiteboards and many online apps and programming tools, this allows our pupils to continually practice and improve the skills they learn. Digital literacy is a high quality skill which we endeavour our pupils to acquire to enable them to succeed in the digital world.

Computing is embedded in the provision for Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) through to Year 6. In EYFS, it is centred around activities that focus on building children’s listening skills, thinking skills, creativity and problem solving. EYFS pupils are given the opportunity to experience creating music through iPads, connecting their learning through their phonics and numbers to a device and using BeeBots to program simple algorithms. We provide our computing units in a step by step method to ensure any areas that are seen to be less confident with our pupils can be addressed effectively and quickly. Throughout the school, confidence is built with the use of ever changing devices including key vocabulary to coincide with their computing units.

Implementation

Our pupils are taught specific knowledge through a broad and balanced curriculum that builds on previous learning which provides both support and challenges to ensure all pupils are adequately trained to think and solve problems critically with a thorough understanding.

Our computing curriculum is organised around 4 key areas:

These 4 key areas are revisited every year to ensure subject knowledge is recapped and added to each year to continually provoke and challenge critical thinking in computing. Teachers are equipped with the key terminology and subject knowledge beforehand to enable the effective transfer of knowledge to the pupils through carefully scaffolded lessons.

Progression of knowledge and skills has been carefully mapped across the curriculum. Earlham believes the safety of our children is dependent on what they see and do online. With devices being more common than before, children are experiencing online dangers that they need to be equipped to tackle independently if necessary through the use of critical thinking. Online Safety lessons are delivered from EYFS through to Year 6 covering various aspects of Online Safety from keeping our personal information safe to cyberbullying. Our pupils are also given the information on how to stay safe and tackle any issues that may arise in the future.

We aspire for all of our pupils to have access to a broad and balanced curriculum that is rich in information and links to the real world. This is also incorporated for our SEND pupils as our computing units are embedded into our main topic of each term. Children with high levels of need access computing through learning that is taking place in every subject rather than just through computing. This is linked to the National Curriculum however is scaffolded to ensure these pupils can take smaller steps to reaching their end of year targets as well as ensuring they still make good progress from their initial starting points. 

We understand, due to COVID, our children have missed substantial opportunities for learning. To ensure our pupils are able to meet the national curriculum targets, we have devised our curriculum to be taught in such a way that each unit is built upon every year. Children are able to access the curriculum through carefully planned activities. Any areas of learning that are not learnt effectively can be identified and incorporated back into the unit currently being taught. This is further strengthened through repeated recaps and plenaries in our curriculum.

Staff are supported with instructional coaching delivered to support class teachers with teaching computing lessons effectively to all levels of pupils. Environment checks are carried out with vocabulary lists being distributed to class teachers to ensure children are making use of key vocabulary in the lesson. Lessons taught include setting common tasks which are open-ended and can have a variety of responses and providing resources of different complexity that are matched to the ability of the child.

In the wider school, parents are invited to various sessions that are set up to support them at home with their child. Whether it is to further aid in programming or keeping their child safe online, parents are equipped with the knowledge to continue the child’s learning of computing from school.

Digital leaders (children chosen to assist in computing throughout the school) will support other pupils and staff. Digital leaders will share information through assemblies and leaflets on aspects of computing particularly helpful to them.

Impact 

Through the use of sequenced and effective teaching of computing across the school, pupils can be seen attaining the knowledge to be well equipped to succeed in the fast-paced environment of computing and technology in school and in their adult life as well as to understand the world around them which can be demonstrated in class, through conversion and pupil interviews and in evidence taken of lessons taught.

With constant monitoring of evidence and teaching of computing through dialogue with class teachers, gaps in learning can be quickly and effectively addressed.

Our computing curriculum invites all of our children into a world of ever changing and evolving technology which creates a yearning for more knowledge which can be seen with our computing club and skills pupils possess at home. Pupils are given the opportunity to experience first-hand computing such as through programming with physical objects using Beebots (Reception and KS1) and Lego (KS1 and KS2).  Children can better support their peers which further enhances the children’s learning  

Pupils leave Earlham supplied with the key required skills to ensure they are ready to succeed in their secondary education and be active participants in the digital world.