Intent

Our curriculum is designed to deepen knowledge and develop skills, ensuring effective progression within each aspect of Computing, across all year groups. Our Christian Values, alongside our School Mission Statement to ‘serve, love and learn together’, are at the heart of our curriculum and all that we do at St. Patrick’s.

How will we ensure that children know and remember digital skills?

• Enable pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and potentially change the world around them.
• Teach how digital systems work and how to put this knowledge to use through programming.
• Teach concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms, and data representation.
• Equip pupils to use information technology to create a range of content.
• Develop digital literacy skills, enabling pupils to use and express themselves through information and communication technology.
• Grow a deep awareness and understanding of digital wellbeing and online safety, protecting themselves and others from dangers of the online world.
• Instil a sense of responsibility and duty to value and take care of their personal devices.
• Enable access to physical computing in each Key Stage.
• Teach the importance of technology in the future workplace and the role the children will play as active participants in a digital world.
• Draw connections between art and other subject areas, particularly mathematics, science and design & technology.

Implementation

In Computing, we implement an inclusive curriculum that meets the requirements of the National Curriculum. The Computing Curriculum has three strands: Computer Science, Digital Literacy and Information Technology, and children develop their knowledge and skills in these areas. They are taught the fundamental principles and concepts of e-safety, programming, multimedia, technology in our lives and data handling. We teach children to build upon their declarative and procedural knowledge within lessons.

It is vital that children develop research, investigational and many other cross-curricular skills during their studies. The computing curriculum is a fun, exciting and dynamic subject, where children learn to use a range of programs, thinking skills and a variety of equipment. We incorporate a rage of schemes, including Teach Computing and Espresso Coding, as well as utilising our Purple Mash subscription effectively within all lessons across the curriculum as well as using this to enhance home learning.

Our curriculum is delivered through dedicated weekly computing lessons in our computer suite and they are taught computing skills across other curriculum areas too.

Our Computing curriculum promotes children’s Spiritual, Moral, Social and Cultural development, ensuring that they are reflective and responsible citizens. Fundamental British Values are actively promoted in Computing lessons in order to prepare the children for life in modern Britain.

Impact

Our Computing curriculum enables children to become both users and creators. Across all phases of the school, children understand algorithms and programming and how this all fits into our digital world through the use of Espresso Coding and Purple Mash programmes.

We pride ourselves on using technologies to prepare children for the ever–changing digital world we live in, whilst embedding the safe, respectful and responsible use of technology, recognising both acceptable and unacceptable online behaviour and identifying a range of ways to report concerns about content or contact.

Children are responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology.