We believe that the teaching of Computing at Eskdale prepares our children to become responsible communicators, collaborators and analysts, in an imaginative and creative developing world. It has been designed to give children access to technology, whilst providing a solid understanding of its uses and limitations. The curriculum is intended to be delivered using different devices and unplugged lessons and activities are chosen to complement the curriculum delivery where appropriate in other subjects. The learning of computing is rooted in all our core values, equipping the children with the life skills that will enable them to embrace and utilise technology in a socially responsible and safe way.
Our core intent is to enable all pupils to strive to:
✓ Develop an understanding of how technology makes a difference to them in all aspects of their lives
✓ Use their knowledge to decide which technology to use to help them reach the desired outcome
✓ Understand the importance of staying safe online and conducting themselves in responsible, respectful and courteous manner
✓ Ensures they become digitally literate at a level appropriate for the future workplace and an active participant of the digit world
✓ Become ‘Computational Thinkers’ Computing skills need teaching discretely and then applied through the rest of the curriculum where appropriate, and where possible linked to the topics being taught in each year group. This is especially important for the teaching of e-safety which should be applied to all aspects of computing.
To allow our pupils to achieve, our method of teaching incorporates meta-cognitive strategies to all pupils to retain the learning of both skill and knowledge. The teaching of computing lends itself well to a process model to ensure the children become increasingly adept at ‘Thinking like a Computational Thinker.
This incorporates the following stages of learning:
✓ Explore – involves the children looking at the software/hardware/ code/program and trying to decide what it will do. This may include making predictions.
✓ Master – this aspect is about mastering the skills needed to apply to the next stages
✓ Design, make and modify – design, make and continually modify their own work.
✓ Evaluate - did it fit the design brief? What will I do differently next time? What else would I like to learn? For all our children to achieve, both learning more and remembering more is key. Our method of teaching incorporates meta-cognitive strategies to enable pupils to retain the learning of both skills and knowledge.
This is typically applied by:
✓ Activating prior knowledge
✓ Small steps teaching delivery
✓ Independent practice
✓ Feedback