Computing

Sandown’s Computing Curriculum: Intent

At Sandown School, we have high expectations for our pupils in all subjects and areas of the curriculum, and computing is no exception. Technology surrounds us and is becoming an increasingly more integral part of our day to day lives, and will continue to do so, and yet when we look at a national picture:

• it is estimated that £63billion of GDP per year is lost to the UK economy due to digital skill shortages.
• the UK needs an estimated 1.2 million new digitally skilled people by 2022 to satisfy future skills needs.
• 12 million people in the UK do not have the necessary skills to thrive in the digital era.
• the number of people taking IT related GCSE subjects has dropped 40% since 2015.

Therefore, here at Sandown, we aspire to ensure that our children become competent, proficient, independent and confident users of technology. It is vitally important that our students have a secure understanding of how to use technology in a safe, respectful and responsible manner, which is why online safety skills are an integral part of our curriculum and are continuously revisited and built-upon, however, we do not want our children to become fearful of technology and its potential risks. This is why it is important that our children also understand the advantages of current technology, as well as how potential future developments can support our modern lives even further. We ensure that our children become proficient in key software such as word processors through not just our computing lessons, but through cross-curricular opportunities as well. Where technology surrounds us, children who may not be confident with their skills in other subjects such as English or maths, are often found to be confident with computing, therefore not only do we encourage our students to grow as confident learners, we encourage this to be transferred to other subjects through cross-curricular opportunities such as completing final drafts of pieces of writing using computers. Our students become critical thinkers, being encouraged to think about the most appropriate software to use depending on the task at hand. We encourage our children to develop their problem solving skills through our effective programming and coding units. Primarily though, our key goal kept at the heart of what we do is that whilst children are developing their proficiency and understanding of technology, that they are having fun and enjoying their learning.

Sandown’s Computing Curriculum: Implementation

At Sandown, we have a comprehensive scheme of work which our staff follow to best embed every element of the computing curriculum, enabling our children to build their progression in computing in a logical and appropriate way.

Our computing curriculum has been divided into 3 core areas of learning:

• Being Safe Online – our children learn how to use technology in a safe, responsible manner through the teaching of proactive strategies to protect themselves online, how to identify appropriate/inappropriate content and conduct through technology, as well as ways to seek support when they have concerns. These skills are revisited and extended not only each academic year as a termly computing focus, but during all points of contact with technology when at school to thoroughly embed their understanding.
• Information Technology – our children learn how to competently and confidently use a range of software and hardware to design, create, store, retrieve and organise digital content. Our children have access to a range of technology in school, including laptops (windows), iPads, Geobooks and Chromebooks. This not only enables our students to become confident with the appropriate use of a range of technology, but allows our students to develop transferrable skills due to the similarities of devices and software, but also to think critically about what software and hardware would be the most appropriate for the job at hand, dependent on the limitations and strengths of the many options available to them. Our children learn about the many applications of technology and the opportunities that they provide us, including research, presentation of information, communication and collaboration. Certain software has been prioritised within our curriculum, such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint, where these are used as such integral elements of day-to-day life, including in many areas of further education and later employment, so we ensure that our children become confident and skilled in these key areas through their regular use, building on their skills and knowledge throughout their time at school.
• Computer Science – by the end of their time at Sandown, our children will be able to design and create programs that accomplish specific goals, including controlling or simulating physical and digital systems. Reasoning, problem solving and prediction skills are developed through practical opportunities to design and test coding, as well as to resolve any issues through debugging. Primarily, we deliver this element of our curriculum using Espresso Coding, which is a visually supportive and engaging coding tool. The students learn step-by-step the skills and vocabulary required for each session with practice opportunities, including the chance to debug their own coding if mistakes are made (which we encourage to test our ideas out and experiment with different possible outcomes, and because, as we know, mistakes are key part of the learning process) and through purposeful mistakes modelled by our staff (usually, because our children are so confident with coding that errors in coding seem to be few and far between!). They then get to experiment with their new skills independently by making their own mini-games at the end of the lesson which our children thoroughly enjoy. Our students are supported enough to all be able to achieve, including through the encouragement of paired work where more confident children can guide other members of the class, however there is always an appropriate level of challenge. Our children are consistently engaged in our coding lessons and you can truly see a strong sense of pride and enjoyment when they have been successful.

Here is an overview of how we teach computing at Sandown across the school, however additional cross-curricular opportunities are regularly embedded as well, including but not limited to:

• - Spelling Shed and Times Tables Rock Stars sessions.
• - In Key Stage 2, children complete a minimum of 3 final drafts of extended writing using word processing software to embed and refresh key skills.
• - High availability of technology which teachers can access for any additional lessons to support learning in other subjects in a cross-curricular way.

At Sandown, we encourage children to enjoy and value technology, whilst feeling confident in how to use it as safe and proficient users. They become confident with using a range of technology for a range of purposes. They become confident and critical problem solvers. They become confident learners and individuals. We believe that our curriculum embeds the confidence, understanding and skills required for future development in their next stages of education and beyond. Our curriculum is under regular review, including through pupil and staff feedback to ensure that we offer the best computing curriculum that we can for our school.

Progression in Computing

Progression in Online Safety

Computing Knowledge

Computing Policy