At George Mitchell School, we highly value the Computing curriculum. We believe that computing is an increasingly crucial part of children’s learning, as technology is essential to our lives and is continuously developing. Our aim is to equip our children with the knowledge and with ‘computational thinking’ skills needed to thrive in a world where technology continuously and rapidly evolves.
To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in Computing, we employ a curriculum that is progressive throughout the school. Pupils are given fun and engaging opportunities to explore, understand and apply skills and ideas in different ways and in different contexts. This enables pupils to grasp key concepts and understand the relevance of their learning. Working towards Mastery, we look to provide deep, long-term, secure and adaptable understanding of Computing, demonstrated by how skilfully our children can apply their learning in Computing to new situations in unfamiliar contexts.
We want our pupils to fully grasp the relevance of existing technologies and the possibilities of emerging ones, so that they can leave our school with secure understanding of how to live in a world where society and future job roles are yet to have even been imagined, using technologies that are yet to exist.
Enrichment
Children are offered the opportunity to further develop their skills at our after-school club. The Code Club offers pupils a chance to learn how to program their own interactive stories, games and animations.
https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/codeclub/scratch-module-1
We take part in the he Bebras Computing Challenge, which introduces computational thinking to students. It is organised in over 50 countries and designed to get students all over the world excited about Computing.
The FIRST LEGO League tournament took place at Chobham Academy 25th January 2020. Some of our pupils joined 9 other teams to compete in a series of project-based, robotics and teamwork led challenges.
https://www.firstlegoleague.org/
Want to Know More? Try this…
BBC Bitesize KS1 Computing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zyhbwmn
BBC Bitesize KS2 Computing
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zvnrq6f
Try computer coding in hour long bites!
https://code.org/hourofcode/overview
Try coding for longer…
Create 3D games!
Digital literacy and E-Safety
Digital Literacy is the ability and skill to find, evaluate, use, apply, share, and create content using information technologies, digital media and the Internet. However our pupils do this, we need them to do it safely.
Digital Literacy and Safeguarding are taught throughout the Computing curriculum where appropriate: as standalone e-Safety lessons or as part of the JIGSAW PSHE scheme of work, in line with the objectives of “Education for a Connected World”. This is to ensure that pupils have healthy online habits and minimise the risks surrounding technology.
ThinkUknow resources include films, animations, websites, presentations and lesson plans to help pupils to explore difficult and sensitive issues safely. The animations/film resources are accompanied by toolkits and guidance for adults to help them explore and discuss common themes for children and young people.
Every February, as a whole school, Safer Internet Day (SID) is organised to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones.
Curriculum and Assessment
What is taught?
At George Mitchel School, we recognise the importance of Computing in every aspect of daily life. As one of the foundation subjects taught in primary schools, we give the learning of Computing the prominence it requires. Using the ‘Teach Computing Curriculum’ from National Centre for Computing Education we follow the National Curriculum, which aims to ensure that our pupils:
- are responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technologies,
- understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation,
- can analyse problems in computational terms, and have real experience of creating computer programs in order to solve such problems, and
- evaluate and use information technology, including new or unfamiliar technologies, logically to solve problems.
We teach Computing progressively through five key strands:
- Online Safety
- Computing Systems and Networks – Technology around us
- Creating Media
- Programming
- Data and Information
We aim to develop children’s basic IT skills and teach the importance of using technology safely. We aim to develop children’s responsibility as digital citizens. We aim to develop children’s understanding of how programs work and how they can be designed to achieve a set of goals.
How is Computing taught?
When teaching Computing, we see it as essential that there is a clear progression of skills and knowledge within each of the strands.
Online safety is taught discretely within each year group and is constantly referred to when teaching in the other strands to develop pupils’ understanding of safe and responsible behaviour.
Learning about Computing Systems and Networks enables our pupils to learn about the design and functions of technology around us.
Teaching within Creating Media focuses on Digital Literacy using a variety of programs and apps. Pupils embed and build the communication skills they will require in the digital world.
Teaching within the Programming strand initially focuses on the coding of physical objects, such as robots, and then develops so that children can code using block programming followed by manual coding. Programs and apps are carefully selected so that skills are built upon progressively. Some are even they are available outside of school, so children have further opportunities to develop their skills.
Computing-Skills-Progression