Computing and E-Safety
At Hextable Primary School, our Computing curriculum aims to develop ‘happy, positive, successful and lifelong learners'. In our ever-changing and evolving digital world, we aim to ensure that our pupils gain the skills and knowledge to thrive and explore the internet safely. Our broad and balanced curriculum encompasses information technology, computer science, digital literacy and e-safety to reflect this.
Aims of the National Curriculum and the Computing programme of study:
- Can 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 repeated practical experience of writing computer programs in order to solve such problems.
- Can evaluate and apply information technology, including new or unfamiliar technologies, analytically to solve problems.
- Are responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology.
Purpose of study
A high-quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world. Computing has deep links with mathematics, science, and design and technology, and provides insights into both natural and artificial systems. The core of computing is computer science, in which pupils are taught the principles of information and computation, how digital systems work, and how to put this knowledge to use through programming. Building on this knowledge and understanding, pupils are equipped to use information technology to create programs, systems and a range of content. Computing also ensures that pupils become digitally literate – able to use, and express themselves and develop their ideas through, information and communication technology – at a level suitable for the future workplace and as active participants in a digital world.
Computing at Hextable Primary School
Intent
At Hextable Primary School, our Computing curriculum aims to develop ‘happy, positive, successful and lifelong learners’. Our world is constantly changing and evolving but what is evident is that technology will always play a pivotal part in our pupil’s lives. Subsequently, we want to model and educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and most importantly, safely. We want our pupils to be creators not consumers and our broad and balanced curriculum encompasses information technology, computer science, digital literacy and e-safety to reflect this. We aim to build our students up with the confidence and skills they need to thrive in their future lives. Therefore, we focus on key skills such as problem-solving to ensure our students have the resilience they need to navigate the technology around them. At Hextable Primary School, we feel that by having a clear progression of skills within the computing curriculum we can ensure our pupils utilise technology positively and safely. Our staff are dedicated to ensuring that our own subject knowledge and understanding of technology is secure to allow us to support our pupils understanding. We believe that computing can be embedded across the whole curriculum to make learning engaging and accessible to all children. At Hextable Primary School, we are aware of the benefits that computing has when creating an inclusive environment. We pride ourselves in having the latest apps and software to support the children throughout their educational journeys. Our aim is to ensure our pupils in all key stages are fluent with a range of tools to ensure they have the independence and confidence to select and express their understanding to fulfil tasks and challenges.
Computing is taught on a weekly basis in one of our two computing suites. Additionally, we make use of the many iPads within the school to access our curriculum. We believe that children should be active learners within their education and celebrate not only their successes but their mistakes. Children are encouraged to use their growth mindsets within their computing lessons to overcome challenges and build their resilience.
On top of our weekly computing lessons, we use technology to aid learning in other subjects. We have seen many benefits to cross-curricular learning and feel that this supports our pupils when mastering their computing skills. Ensuring our pupils have meaningful experiences and opportunities to practise and apply their learning is paramount. We know that children learn better when they are able to contextualise their understanding and make links. Therefore, we use computing to support all subjects throughout our whole school curriculum as this ensures our pupils have these opportunities.
We celebrate our love of computing and technology in a variety of ways. We aim to provide extra-curricular clubs and activities to continue to develop our pupils’ skills. Our pupils are proud of their knowledge and developing skills and we celebrate this within our displays and working walls.
We believe that our computing curriculum develops the skills children need to be passionate, resilient, confident and creative in their ever-changing world.
Implementation
Computing Vocabulary Progression
Internet Safety Coffee Morning PowerPoint
E-Safety
The internet is a major part of everyday life and is a necessary tool for learning, both in and out of school. Being online should be a safe and positive experience for children and parents/carers, below are some links to help you understand how to keep it that way.
Click here for the latest e-safety guidance from the NSPCC.
Objectives we aim to instil in our pupils during E-safety lessons are:
- I can describe ways that some people can be unkind
- I can recognise online bullying can be different to bullying in the physical world and can describe some of those differences.
- I can explain why people need to think carefully about how content they post might affect others, their feelings and how it may affect how others feel about them (their reputation).
- I can describe the helpline services which can help people experiencing bullying, and how to access them (e.g. Childline or The Mix).
- I can identify a range of ways to report concerns and access support both in school and at home about online bullying.
