Our intention at West Hill School is to offer children a computing rich curriculum that prepares them for the digital world of work. We understand how important it is to be computer literate and ready for the next stage in their education. With that in mind, West Hill School has invested significant funds to ensure that our pupils have access to the latest technology.
Lessons are relevant and accessible to all. Children have the opportunity to master programmes and be creative. They will become confident users – ready to progress on at the end of primary school.
Skills develop as they progress through the school, building in complexity. Children in year 6 are therefore competent and confident users of technology.
At West Hill School, we want our learners to be able to apply their skills across a range of mediums, safely, and not be restricted to one type of software or device. We need them to learn to adapt to the fast-changing world of Computing. Computing is taught in timetabled lessons, as well as embedded across the curriculum. This ensures that children are able to develop depth in their knowledge and skills over the duration of each of their computing topics.
Our planned curriculum includes starting each topic with a relevant E-Safety lesson, which teaches the children what to do if they come across something that makes them uncomfortable. Children have the opportunity to discuss the dangers around being online and using technology and in turn how to keep themselves safe. The lessons are broad in covering a range of issues including understanding current issues such as ‘fake news’ and ‘body image’. The children are also taught the importance of reporting something they experience happening to themselves or another person, or talking to a trusted adult as in accordance with our Anti Bullying Policy and our Online Safety Policy. Further enrichment activities take place during Safer Internet Day.
Coding is taught using a range of multimedia from Bee-Bots in the EYFS and Year 1 to Scratch, Kodu, Hopscotch and Sphero in KS2, which exposes the children to what algorithms are, and leads them to the design stage of programming. In this, they design, write and debug programs, explaining the computational thinking behind their algorithms, using key concepts such as abstraction, decomposition, logic and algorithms. A use of a variety of software ensures that children are not just learning how to work on one tool, but having to apply these skills and use computational thinking across the curriculum.
Digital Literacy gives children the skills, knowledge and understanding that will help them to take a full and active part in social, cultural, economic, civic and intellectual life now and in the future. The children are involved in making digital books, animations, movies and blogs across a range of digital tools, including iMovie, Book Creator and GoogleSites.
IT enables the children to use their digital literacy skills to process and present work in a variety of formats, including using PicCollage, Puppet Pals, word processors and Keynote. Children are also taught to create surveys, gather data and present the information.
Effective teaching includes the skilful use of assessment, which is done throughout lessons to check children’s knowledge and understanding. Assessment is done against the learning objectives relevant to each lesson being taught. These are clearly laid out in the scheme of work.
Pupil engagement is not only fulfilled by a varied curriculum, but also access to numerous resources to teach Computing. The children are able to use Bee-Bots, Spheros, iPads and laptops in order to experience learning across a variety of platforms.
