At Hexham First we believe that the children should be provided with an ambitious curriculum that will prepare them for the future and jobs that might not exist now, acknowledging that most if not in all future careers the children will need to be computer literate. We want to provide the children with a broad and balanced curriculum that covers the three aspects of the computing curriculum 

• Computer science
• Information Technology
• Digital Literacy

that will develop and build on their computing skills as they progress through the school. We acknowledge that computing knowledge is fundamental for the children understanding of how computer systems operate and how to use various programs. We allow the children to use this knowledge and apply computing skills across a range of applications and our curriculum is not static and will adapt to the needs and abilities of different cohorts. Computational Thinking is developed from Early Years onwards so the children can adapt and apply skills to new computing hardware as it is introduced. To ensure our curriculum is coherently planned and progression is evident we use lesson plans and resources provided by NCCE, Barefoot and Packages within the online Learning platform provided by Northumberland NGFL. Project Evolve which is based on the document Education in a connected World  is used as the basis of our online safety curriculum. 

 

Implementation

All children have regular, weekly lessons to develop computing skills as well as opportunities to use computing programmes to support other curriculum areas for example a programme to develop times tables recall. The children have access to a range of devises including Chrome Books, networked computers and iPads to support their learning and development of computing skills so they develop transferrable skills. As a consequence of the pandemic and home learning the children are being taught how to use Google Classroom. 

Our Early Years children develop early mouse skills, use programmable toys and become aware of the uses of IT in the world around them. In Key Stage 1 and 2 children develop their computing skills further and become more confident in using a range of resources. They use music packages, paint packages, animation, word processing, programmable robots and use the internet to carry out research.

To provide an ambitious curriculum we have taken advantage of the offer from our local LEA to borrow computing hardware. This has included spheroes and spheroe Indi Robots. To further enrich our computing provision we have established a Code Club and prior to the pandemic and bubbles some of the older children were digital leaders.

 

Impact

The children talk enthusiastically about their computing lessons and approach each new aspect with confidence, transferring their skills when using new hardware. We have recently started using the Knowledge Maps from Project Evolve to monitor our online safety provision. The baseline shows the children have an awareness of how to stay safe when using technology and repeating the test at the end will show us the impact. During lockdown we were able to see that the children could access technology confidently at home to access the lessons provided.