At St Leonard’s Lower School, we are growing and learning together with God’s Love and our Christian values are embedded in all that we do.

We recognise that every child is a unique individual within God’s creation and it is our aim is to provide learning opportunities that enable our children to develop deep roots to enable them to flourish and succeed. 

At St Leonard’s Lower school, we want to develop ‘thinkers of the future’ through a modern, ambitious and relevant education in computing. We want to equip pupils to use computational thinking and creativity that will enable them to become active participants in the digital world. It is important to us that the children understand how to use the ever-changing technology to express themselves, as tools for learning and as a means to drive their generation forward into the future.

Our Computing curriculum is ambitious and inclusive for all, enabling each child to learn and develop the skills and knowledge they need to thrive. It is a relevant, creative, exciting and challenging curriculum planned to support all learners to achieve their full potential, to know more and remember more, and to be prepared for their next steps in learning.

Beyond teaching computing discreetly, we will give pupils the opportunity to apply and develop what they have learnt across wider learning in the curriculum.

Whilst ensuring they understand the advantages and disadvantages associated with online experiences, we want children to develop as respectful, responsible and confident users of technology, aware of measures that can be taken to keep themselves and others safe online.

Digital Literacy skills will be taught frequently (at least once per half term) and Online Safety issues will be explored within each year group from EYFS to Y4. This may form links with other subjects such as PSHE and issues may need to be addressed within whole school/key stage/class assemblies. The underlying concepts of Digital Literacy will be revisited and revised within year groups as needed and as is appropriate throughout each term. Teachers will refer to and follow the ‘Education for a Connected World’ framework, as recommended by the DfE and UKCIS in ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022’ p.34

Implementation

Our scheme of work for Computing is adapted from the ‘Teach Computing’ Curriculum and covers all aspects of the National Curriculum. This scheme was chosen as it has been created by subject experts and based on the latest pedagogical research. It provides an innovative progression framework where computing content (concepts, knowledge, skills and objectives) has been organised into interconnected networks called learning graphs.

We have networked class sets of laptops and iPads and other resources (such as bee-bots) to support our computing teaching. 

'Schools Broadband' provide our broadband, with Netsweeper providing filtering and security services and Senso providing device monitoring to ensure that our school meets with Keeping Children Safe in Education guidelines.

Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022 states:

“135. It is essential that children are safeguarded from potentially harmful and inappropriate online material. An effective whole school and college approach to online safety empowers a school or college to protect and educate pupils, students, and staff in their use of technology and establishes mechanisms to identify, intervene in, and escalate any concerns where appropriate.” p. 35.

https://www.schoolsbroadband.co.uk/schools-and-mats/primary-schools/

https://www.netsweeper.co.uk/

https://senso.cloud/gb/

Partnership Education Ltd provide specialised IT services to support the delivery of our curriculum. https://partnership.education/

In addition, all of our pupils have a Google account and Google Classroom is used to provide Home learning support.  

Early Years

Despite computing not being explicitly mentioned within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework, which focuses on the learning and development of children from birth to age five, we build many opportunities for our children to use technology to solve problems, produce creative outcomes and to become computational thinkers.

For example, our Pupils use Bee-bots and voice recorders, they use iPad to take photographs and have opportunities to extend their learning using computer programmes. Children will be exposed to the understanding of internet safety as they explore the world around them and how technology is an everyday part of their learning and understanding of the world.

Key Stage 1-2

We use the Teach Computing scheme of work and teaching materials to support our Computing teaching.

Pupils in years 1-4 have a designated weekly computing lesson. 

In addition, technology is also used within many other curriculum subjects such as Art and Design, Geography, History, English and Maths. 

Teach Computing is a progressive scheme of work, created by the Raspberry Pi Foundation on behalf of the National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE). It has been written to support all pupils. Each lesson is sequenced so that it builds on the learning from the previous lesson, and where appropriate, activities are scaffolded so that all pupils can succeed and thrive.

The computing curriculum is accessible for all learners. Scaffolded activities provide pupils with extra resources, such as visual prompts, to reach the same learning goals as the rest of the class. Exploratory tasks foster a deeper understanding of a concept, encouraging pupils to apply their learning in different contexts and make connections with other learning experiences

All learning objectives have been mapped to the National Centre for Computing Education’s taxonomy of ten strands, which ensures that units build on each other from one key stage to the next.

The ten strands covered are:

■ Algorithms - to be able to comprehend, design, create, and evaluate algorithms

■ Computer networks - to understand how networks can be used to retrieve and share information, and how they come with associated risks

■ Computer systems - to understand what a computer is, and how its constituent parts function together as a whole

■ Creating media - to select and create a range of media including text, images, sounds, and video

■ Data and information - to understand how data is stored, organised, and used to represent real-world artefacts and scenarios

■ Design and development - to understand the activities involved in planning, creating, and evaluating computing artefacts

■ Effective use of tools - to use software tools to support computing work

■ Impact of technology - to understand how individuals, systems, and society as a whole interact with computer systems

■ Programming - to create software to allow computers to solve problems

■ Safety and security - to understand risks when using technology, and how to protect individuals and systems

See below for long term planning and progression mapping. 

Impact

By the end of the Foundation Stage most children will be able to:

• recognise that a range of technology is used in places such as homes and schools 

• select and use technology for particular purposes

In Key stages 1-2, Learning Outcomes and Success Criteria are introduced at the beginning of each lesson. 

This enables pupils to self-assess their progress throughout each lesson, and teachers to make formative and summative assessments, to assess whether pupils are work towards, at or above age related expectations.  

Monitoring takes various forms, for example, pupil voice, work sampling, lesson observations and learning walks to ensure that all pupils are developing their skills and knowledge effectively. 

At Key Stages 1 to 2 an end of year summative assessment is reported to parents in the annual report.