Computing

What a computer is to me is it’s the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

Steve Jobs

At Garden Fields we aim to ‘grow hearts and minds’ through providing pupils with an exciting, rich, relevant and challenging Computing curriculum. We follow the Teach Computing scheme of work to teach the three main areas of Computing: Computer Science, Information Technology and Digital Literacy, as well as embedding the Common-Sense Media online safety units of work into our curriculum. Our Computing program ensures that all pupils are able to use computational thinking in their learning across all curriculum areas, with a secure understanding of how to stay safe online. At Garden Fields we believe this is essential in preparing our pupils for the digital world.

You can find out more in our 3 Is; Intent, Implementation and Impact.

Intent

At Garden Fields we intend to:

Ensure pupils become positive digital citizens by teaching them how to stay safe online, understanding the risks and building resilience to manage and navigate the online environment.
Teach pupils to become responsible, respectful and competent users of data, information and communication technology.
Increase pupil’s confidence and creativity in their uses of technology for a wide range of purposes.
Support pupils in becoming digitally literate by using both cognitive and technical skills taught explicitly in Computing lessons and interwoven into other subjects.

Implementation

We teach the National Curriculum through the Teach Computing scheme of work to ensure there is a clear progression of skills and knowledge. This scheme provides pupils with an in depth understanding of the four strands of Computing: Computing Systems and Networks, Programming, Data and Information and Creating Media. Lessons are clearly sequenced and knowledge and skills are built upon both lesson after lesson and year after year to maximise opportunities and learning for all pupils. Computing is taught explicitly through weekly lessons and embedded into other areas of the curriculum to enable children to make links with their learning. We work in partnership with the local Teach Computing Hub at Sandringham School to enrich our provision and prepare pupils for their future education.

At Garden Fields we strive to ensure that all pupils have equal access to our Computing curriculum. In both Computing lessons and other curriculum subjects, pupils have access to: class iPads, Chromebooks, bee-bots, microbits, code-a-pillars, microphones and headphones in school, along with additional technologies provided by the teaching hub of Sandringham.

Work is saved on our school google drive and accessed by the class teacher for assessment and to observe pupil progress.

A weekly coding club has been implemented to extend pupils understanding of coding and promote a love of the subject

Impact

The impact of our Computing curriculum is to promote the opportunity for every child to be a confident, creative and responsible digital citizen. We aim for the children to leave Garden Fields School with a secure grasp of how to use technology for a wide range of purposes. We want them to have the opportunity to work with a range of devices and experiment with the new skills they have been taught. We are understanding of the expectations of local secondary schools for children to use chromebooks regularly in lessons and so introduce programs and systems in a way which will aid their transition to this way of working. Furthermore, we want children to understand how to respect the dangers of the internet, have strategies to cope with uncomfortable content and know where to get help and support. Ultimately, we aim to provide children with the knowledge, skills and enthusiasm to use technology to their benefit in their further education and beyond.