Subject Intent
Computing teaching at Avonwood Primary School aims to teach a set of core ideas that will enable all students to enter the digital world at the end of their education with the confidence and competence in digital literacy that will be required of them.
At Avonwood, we aim to give children an understanding of the importance of the digital world, the role they play in it, both as a user and a creator, and the confidence to be technological pioneers who take their current understanding and combine it with their creativity to explore technology in new ways.
By the time they leave Avonwood, children will have developed foundational knowledge in computer science and the associated problem-solving skills need to debug and code. They will know how to stay safe, discerning, and responsible online including how to search efficiently. They will also have had a wide experience of using apps, website, and devices to create and edit digital media. They will be equipped with the skills and knowledge to choose tools appropriate for the task safely.
Subject Implementation
At Avonwood, we are fortunate to have access to United Learning’s curriculum, this allows us to draw on a range of experts and implement their curriculum design. This is primarily through the use of the ‘Teach Computing Curriculum ‘scheme of work which draws upon the expertise of subject specialists from the Computing Community. The scheme allows for progression and develops breadth of skills and knowledge. Each year the children revisit the same threads of Computing including programming, media creation and aspects of data handling.
Computing is a knowledge and skills-led subject, therefore the teacher is ‘the expert’ and guides the children through the following processes:
Instructive teaching – knowledge and skills
Much of the teaching time will be instructive, such as learning about how to order algorithms. Over time, children will develop and increase their knowledge in a range of applications to be able to use them with greater independence. To be able to use software, children will need direct teaching and guidance to refine their skills. Over time, children will consolidate their knowledge of key vocabulary and computing concepts, such as networks and technology in the wider world.
Practise and Consolidation and review
Once the teacher has finished their instructional coaching, the children will apply their new knowledge and understanding through targeted tasks on a range of software throughout each academic year. Consolidation activities form an important part of each lesson. For example: the start of each lesson will focus on reviewing previous learning; there will be opportunities during the lesson to recap key vocabulary or facts learnt in the lesson to that point; learning may be reviewed at the end of the lesson in a plenary.
Evaluation and Review
Children need to be given the opportunity to look for errors and debug algorithms. Review can be built into a cycle when producing media or programs. This gives pupils the opportunity to decide whether they have fulfilled the brief and to consider other ways of achieving the goal.
Subject Impact
If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress in accordance to the United Learning progression in conjunction with the National Curriculum objectives.
We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:
| Formative Assessment |
Summative Assessment |
| Verbal responses to questions |
Unit projects should demonstrate an understandin, and application, of taught outcomes |
| Low-stakes |
| Observational assessment |
| Monitoring of work held digitally |