Computing

St. William’s Catholic Primary School believes that every child should have the right to a curriculum that champions excellence, supporting pupils in achieving to the very best of their abilities. We understand the immense value technology plays not only in supporting the Computing and whole school curriculum but overall, in the day-to-day life of our school.

We believe that technology can provide: enhanced collaborative learning opportunities; better engagement of pupils; easier access to rich content; support conceptual understanding of new concepts and can support the needs of all our pupils.

In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in computing, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout our school, from Early Years up to Year 6. Computing teaching at St. William’s involves adapting and extending the curriculum to match all pupils’ needs. Although staff are provided with the Purple Mash Computing Curriculum, teachers plan to suit their children’s interests, current events, their own teaching style, the use of any support staff and the resources available. Our teaching sequence enables a continuous approach throughout the school to enable students to develop a good understanding of computing. Computing is taught consistently in standalone lessons, once a week for up to one hours, but is discretely taught in many different contexts throughout all areas of the curriculum. Staff and children are supported by our partners from Benchmark North who work with two classes from Years 1 – 6 each term.

At St. William’s we ensure that all students are exposed to rich learning experiences that aim to:

• Provide an exciting, rich, relevant and challenging Computing curriculum for all pupils.
• Enthuse and equip children with the capability to use technology throughout their lives.
• Give children access to a variety of high-quality hardware, software and unplugged resources.
• Instil critical thinking, reflective learning and a ‘can do’ attitude for all our pupils, particularly when engaging with technology and its associated resources. 
• Teach pupils to become responsible, respectful and competent users of data, information and communication technology.
• Teach pupils to understand the importance of governance and legislation regarding how information is used, stored, created, retrieved, shared, and manipulated.
• Equip pupils with skills, strategies and knowledge that will enable them to reap the benefits of the online world, whilst being able to minimise risk to themselves or others.
• Use technology imaginatively and creatively to inspire and engage all pupils, as well as using it to be more efficient in the tasks associated with running an effective school.
• Provide technology solutions for forging better home and school links.
• Utilise computational thinking beyond the Computing curriculum.
• Exceed the minimum government recommended/statutory guidance for programmes of study for Computing and other related legislative guidance (online safety).
• Long Term and progression maps will need to be attached documents 

The impact and measure of this is to ensure students not only acquire the appropriate age-related knowledge linked to the computing curriculum, but also skills which equip them to progress from their starting points, and within their everyday lives. Our aim for computing is to increase the skills needed to navigate an ever-changing world of by immersing our students with the necessary skills. We aim to create a culture of high computing aspirations, which will allow our students a platform to develop their learning and careers.

Pupil attainment is assessed using the 2Simple Computing Assessment Tool for Years 1 to 6. The tool enables staff to accurately identify attainment of pupils through the detailed exemplification it has for each key learning intention. Tracking of attainment by using the 2Simple Computing Assessment Tool is used to inform future planning.

Children are encouraged to self, peer and group assess work in a positive way.

Formative assessment is undertaken each session/interaction in Computing and pupils are very much encouraged to be involved in that process. Through using the progression of skills documents and displays from 2Simple, both teachers and pupils can evaluate progress. Features such as preview and correct in Purple Mash are used to further support feedback and assessment. Summative assessment is undertaken in line with the assessment cycle (See Assessment Policy). 

Computing as a subject is not just learnt within the classroom, good Computing Education is a partnership between the child’s home and school and there are lots of things you can do as a parent/carer to support your child’s journey.

Allowing your child to talk about Computing topics at home can be a really good way for them to explore and contextualise some of the content. If you have time, research some of the areas you know are coming up in your child’s Computing programme, and anticipate any awkward questions. The children are able to access Purple Mash at home to support this.

For additional and information, you might find helpful, please see our ‘Useful Links’ section.

https://www.purplemash.com/sch/stwilliamswn2

https://code.org/

https://scratch.mit.edu/

https://www.dancemattypingguide.com/