INTENT

Computing is a creative, challenging and inspiring subject that is embedded across our whole curriculum. At St Anselm’s, we want pupils to be masters of technology and not slaves to it. Technology is everywhere and will play a pivotal part in students' lives, therefore, we want to model and educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and safely. We want our pupils to be creators not consumers and our broad curriculum, which encompasses computer science, information technology and digital literacy, reflects this. Our pupils should understand that there is always a choice with using technology and as a school, we utilise technology to model positive use, recognising that the best prevention for many societal issues around technology is through education. We recognise that technology can allow pupils to share their learning in creative ways. We also understand the accessibility opportunities that technology can provide for our pupils. Our knowledge-rich curriculum has to be balanced with the opportunity for pupils to apply their knowledge creatively which will in turn help our pupils become skillful computer scientists. We encourage staff to try and embed computing across the whole curriculum to make learning creative and accessible. We want our pupils to be fluent with a range of tools to best express their understanding and our aim is that by the time they reach Upper Key Stage 2, they have the independence and confidence to choose the best tool to fulfil the task and challenge set by teachers.

IMPLEMENTATION

Through a variety of creative and cross-curricular activities, we teach the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to engage in an iterative process of creation through computer technology. Pupils will mostly produce work through a wide range of cross-curricular contexts, which include but are not limited to home, school leisure, culture, enterprise, industry and the wider environment.

The majority of computing should be embedded across the curriculum. Each class is timetabled one explicit computing session each week for three half-terms per year; this allows for the Computer Science aspects of computing to be taught which may or may not be embedded across other curriculum subjects. Across the other three half-terms, teachers will deliver the Information Technology learning which should be cross-curricular. Teachers may also want to timetable in “tinkering sessions” during this time, which is where they can introduce a new app or tool which children will be using in their upcoming learning, which gives them the opportunity to experiment and familiarise themselves with the technology first. Digital Literacy learning will be taught explicitly through a focused half-term of Power Hour sessions for each class, however class teachers will make reference to and develop this learning throughout all computing sessions.

As an example, this is how a class’ computing learning may look across the year:

IMPACT

We ensure that pupils:

• can understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation
• can analyse problems in computational terms, and have repeated practical experience of writing computer programs in order to solve such problems
• can evaluate and apply information technology, including new or unfamiliar technologies, analytically to solve problems
• are responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology.

The high-quality computing education at St Anselm’s encourages our children to enjoy and value technology and what it can offer. We will constantly ask the WHY behind their learning and not just the HOW. We want learners to discuss, reflect and appreciate the impact computing has on their learning, development and wellbeing. Finding the right balance with technology is key to an effective education and a healthy lifestyle. We feel the way we implement computing helps children realise the need for the right balance and one they can continue to build on in their next stage of education and beyond. We encourage regular discussions between staff and pupils to best embed and understand this. The way pupils showcase, share, celebrate and publish their work will best show the impact of our curriculum. We also look for evidence through reviewing pupil’s knowledge and skills digitally through tools like Google Classroom & Drive 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.