COMPUTING

At Messingham Primary School we recognise the importance of a high quality computing curriculum. We do not follow a set planning scheme but do use National Online Safety to support with our E-safety curriculum.

Our intent:

In line with the 2014 National Curriculum, our aim is to provide children with computational thinking so that throughout their time at Messingham, they can secure, refine and apply the necessary knowledge and skills in order to become digitally literate.

At Messingham Primary, we understand that technology is everywhere and will play a pivotal part in students’ lives. Therefore, we want to model and educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and safely. In a rapidly evolving digital world, we recognise the importance of preparing our learners in equipping them with the knowledge and skills to compete on the world stage.  

Our computing curriculum focuses on a progression of skills in multimedia, programming, data handling, digital literacy and e-safety. Building our knowledge in this subject will allow pupils to effectively demonstrate their learning through creative use of technology. Our knowledge rich curriculum has to be balanced with the opportunity for pupils to apply their knowledge creatively which will in turn help our pupils become skilful computer scientists. We encourage staff to try and embed computing across the whole curriculum to enhance, enrich and make learning more creative.

By the time they leave Messingham Primary School, children will have gained the key knowledge and skills in our five key areas, ensuring a solid grounding for future learning.

How we implement this:

A bespoke progression of skills document supports teachers in designing sequences of work that are built upon the requirements of the National Curriculum, are challenging, fun and matched to the age range they teach.  Each class has a class ipad for daily use. Year 6 have a set of 25 ipads for individual use to support with their learning. We also have a set of 30 chromebooks that the school shares on a booking out system to support with the computing curriculum. We teach discrete computing in accordance with our long term plan as well as capitalising on opportunities for the application of digital skills within other areas of the curriculum.

The impact:

We encourage our children to enjoy and value the curriculum we deliver. We will constantly ask the WHY behind their learning and not just the HOW. We want learners to discuss, reflect and appreciate the impact computing has on their learning, development and future. Finding the right balance with technology is key to an effective education and a healthy life-style. We feel the way we implement computing helps children realise the need for the right balance and one they can continue to build on in their next stage of education and beyond. The impact of teaching can be seen in our children’s topic books; on displays around school; on our class Twitter page, in class scrapbooks, on Google Classrooms and by speaking to our pupils. As a school we measure impact through book looks, learning walks, lesson observations, teacher and pupil voice and our assessments. This is undertaken by Miss Houldridge and the curriculum leaders. 

Miss Fysh is our computing coordinator and Mrs Lakin and Miss Morris are our curriculum leaders.