Computing Intent
Technology is becoming an everyday part of life. At St Faith’s we hope to prepare our children for a future in an environment which is shaped by technology. We encourage children to think creatively, to be engaged, inspired and challenged. The subject encourages children to become autonomous and creative problem solvers, both as individuals and as part of a team. Children are provided with the opportunity to explore and experiment with a variety of tools and applications and confidently apply them to their work as they plan, design, create, program and evaluate information through the use of ICT. We prepare our children to stay safe online through the use of E-safety awareness sessions and safer internet days.
Implementation of Computing
We aim to encourage our children to remember knowledge and build on their prior learning by ensuring we carefully consider how knowledge is sequenced. Teachers must understand what pupils must know and be able to do in each subject by the end of each academic year; they must recognise what has come before and what pupils will continue to learn in the next year.
Our curriculum design is based on three main principles:
1) Learning is most effective when spaced rather than blocked.
2) Interleaving helps pupils to discriminate between topics and aids long-term retention. ‘Interleaving is a process where students mix, or interleave, multiple subjects or topics while they study in order to improve their learning.’
3) Retrieval of previously learned content is frequent and regular, which increases both storage and retrieval strength.
Some of our content is subject specific, whilst other content is combined in a cross-curricular approach.
Early Years
In the EYFS, the ways in which every child engages with other people and their environment – playing and exploring, active learning, and creating and thinking critically – underpin learning and development across all areas and support the child to remain an effective and motivated learner. The children are encouraged to recognise a range of technology used at home and in school and to select a technology for a particular purpose.
Children are taught computing through the following areas of learning:
Understanding the world: Technology:
Children recognise that a range of technology is used in places such as homes and schools. They select and use technology for particular purposes.
Key Stage 1
In accordance with the National Curriculum, children are taught to:
In Key Stage 1, computing is taught through the half termly topics throughout the year, so that children can achieve depth in their learning. Teachers have identified the key knowledge and skills of each topic and consideration has been given to ensure progression across topics throughout each year group across the school.
At the beginning of each topic, children are able to convey what they know already as well as what they would like to know or find out. This ensures that lessons are relevant and take account of children’s different starting points. Consideration is given to how greater depth will be taught, learnt and demonstrated within each lesson, as well as how learners will be supported in line with the school’s commitment to inclusion.
Cross curricular outcomes in computing are specifically planned for, with links between all curriculum subjects identified, planned for and utilised.
The distinctive Christian values of respect, compassion, trust, justice, friendship and community are promoted through the experiences we offer to every child, in all areas of the curriculum.