St John Fisher Catholic Primary School

Computing: Curriculum Statement

Intent:

At St John Fisher Catholic Primary School, we offer a Catholic Education to all of our children. We would like our children to be the creators of technology and not just the consumers to it and our broad curriculum which provides rich experiences encompassing computer science, information technology and digital literacy reflects this. Technology is everywhere and plays a pivotal part in children’s lives in the 21^st century. Therefore, we would like to model and educate our pupils on how to use and manage technology positively, collaboratively, responsibly and safely to support the growth of our children’s social competence. We would also like our children to understand that there is always a choice when using technology and as a school, we utilise a range of technology to model positive use. We recognise that technology can allow pupils to share their learning in creative ways. Our knowledge rich curriculum has to be balanced with the opportunity for children to apply their knowledge, demonstrate creative thinking and risk taking while also becoming skilful computer scientists.

We encourage staff to try and embed computing across the whole curriculum to make learning creative and accessible. We would like our children to be fluent with a range of tools to best express their understanding and hope by the end of Key Stage 2, children have the independence and confidence to choose the best tool to fulfil the task and challenge set for them.

Implementation:

We have created a comprehensive progression of skills document for staff to follow to best embed and cover every element of the computing curriculum. The progression of skills document builds year on year to deepen and challenge our learners thereby developing their growth mindset.

At St. John Fisher, computing is embedded across the curriculum. Every class is timetabled to do a computing lesson at the suite each week. The timetabled computing lesson usually has a focus on one of the two elements: an explicit Computer Science or Information Technology lesson. We recognise that the computer science part of the computing curriculum will often, but not always, need a more explicit approach. That is not to say it cannot be embedded across the curriculum. During the Information Technology lesson, children are introduced to a new app or tool and are given the opportunity to experiment and familiarise themselves with the different elements and tools before it can be applied in a more focused approach across the curriculum. Some computing sessions can also be covered by using technology to demonstrate learning in other subjects.

Impact:

We encourage our children to enjoy and value the curriculum we deliver. 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 well-being. The implementation of this curriculum ensures that, when children leave St John Fisher, they are competent and safe users of IT with an understanding of how technology works. They will have developed skills to express themselves and be equipped to apply their skills in computing to different challenges going forward. 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 children’s knowledge and skills digitally on the designated area on our server and by observing learning regularly.

The Leader for Computing is Candy Wong.