Computing

Intent

 

Technology is the future and here, at South Molton Community Primary School, we aim to deliver a high-quality computing education. At South Molton Community Primary School, teaching computing allows us to equip our children with the life skills that will enable them to be ready in our rapidly changing world, which is increasingly being transformed by technology. 

 

At South Molton Community Primary School, we aim for our children to be digitally literate and knowledgeable around what computing and technology has to offer. During their time at primary school, we want our pupils to have a variety of computing and technological experiences to develop creativity, independence, resilience and problem solving skills. We also aim for the children to understand their responsibilities as members of the digital world. 

 

We want our pupils to be able to be successful in the future, where computing and technology will play a huge part in their lives. We want the children to understand how to be safe, to be confident and to enjoy themselves when using technology and our computing curriculum supports this in a variety of ways.

 

We want our pupils to understand that there is always a choice with using technology and as a school we utilise technology (especially social media) to model positive use. We recognise that the best prevention for a lot of issues we currently see with technology/social media is through education. Building our knowledge in this subject will allow pupils to effectively demonstrate their learning through creative use of technology.

 

At South Molton Community Primary School, the computing curriculum is delivered from Purple Mash’s computing scheme of work. During computing lessons, children use a variety of devices including: Chromebooks, teacher iPads and Android tablets. This gives the pupils the computing skills to use a range of devices and software. The computing lessons focus on the curriculum skills of: information technology, digital literacy and computer science. 

​

Implementation

 

At South Molton Community Primary School, computing is taught in discrete computing lessons. Staff use the ‘Purple Mash’ scheme, published by 2Simple. Every lesson in the scheme has been individually planned so that it can meet the needs of all of our pupils. The scheme has been closely referenced against the 2014 National Curriculum attainment targets, in order to ensure progression and coverage. Having discrete lessons means that the children are able to develop depth in their knowledge and skills over the duration of each of their computing units of work. Our single form entry classes follow their relevant year group’s unit of work and then our mixed classes follow a cycle system.

Where appropriate, meaningful links will be made between the computing curriculum and the wider curriculum. Employing cross-curricular links motivates pupils and supports them to make connections and remember the steps they have been taught. Certain computing objectives have the possibility to be embedded across other curriculum subjects - within certain lessons that are included in the projects from Cornerstones Curriculum Maestro and also in specific sessions our English lessons, which is linked to The Reading Journey.

​

Impact

 

We encourage our children to enjoy and value the curriculum we deliver here at South Molton Community Primary School. During computing sessions, we ask ‘why?’ so the pupils understand the meaning behind their learning. We want the pupils to discuss, reflect and appreciate the impact that computing has on their learning, development, well being and their future lives. 

 

Finding the right balance with technology is key to an effective education and a healthy life-style. 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 also shows the impact of our curriculum. We also look for evidence through reviewing pupil’s knowledge and skills digitally through Purple Mash, Google Classroom and by observing learning. 

 

When using Purple Mash, staff have access to the Purple Mash assessment tool that links to their scheme of work, which links to the objectives from the National Curriculum. During the units of work, the computing lead and the class teachers will be able to analyse and evaluate the impact the computing lessons are having on the pupils.