Computing
The advance of technology is based on making it fit in so that you don't really even notice it, so it's part of everyday life - Bill Gates
Intent
At Woodlands, we want pupils to be masters of technology and not slaves to it. Technology is everywhere and will play a pivotal part in our children's future. We aim to model and educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and safely. Building our knowledge in this subject will allow pupils to effectively demonstrate their learning through creative use of technology. We recognise that technology can allow pupils to share their learning across the whole curriculum in creative ways. We also understand the accessibility opportunities technology can provide for our pupils and aim to upskill our children through the use of technological aids where appropriate
Implementation
At Woodlands, our computing curriculum is taught with a cross-curricular focus; using positive aspects of the DARES projects and Teach Computing. This provides children with an opportunity to develop a wide variety of computing skills. Our curriculum is sequential, with skills built on year by year to deepen and challenge our learners. It ensures children are able to use a variety of hardware and software and helps them develop transferrable skills for later life. Our curriculum is balanced with the opportunity for pupils to apply their knowledge creatively which will in turn help our pupils become skilful computer scientists. We aim for our pupils to be fluent with a range of tools to best express their understanding and hope by Upper Key Stage 2, children have the independence and confidence to choose the best tool to fulfil the task and challenge set by teachers.
For our online safety, we utilise a wide range of resources. Our Enrichment Overview allows for e-safety to be woven throughout the curriculum and across all class during each term. We are keen to ensure our child become safe users of technology. We supplement our Teach Computing curriculum with Natterhub. This safe, gated, platform provides our children with engaging lessons covering: relationships with technology, building digital resilience, the importance of online kindness and digital wellbeing. We aim for our pupils to understand that there is always a choice with using technology and as a school we utilise technology and social media to model positive use. We recognise that the best prevention for a lot of issues we currently see with technology/social media is through education.
You can find more information about our e-safety curriculum, here
Impact
We look to evidence our pupils work through reviewing pupil’s knowledge and skills digitally through tools like Seesaw and observing learning regularly. Progress of our computing curriculum is demonstrated through outcomes and the record of coverage in the process of achieving these outcomes.