Computing

‘Computing is not about computers anymore. It is about living.’ - Nicholas Negroponte. 

We grow in Computing because: 

Today, technology is changing the lives of everyone, especially children and young people. Through computing, we aim to enable the children we teach to be active members of a rapidly changing society, where work and leisure activities are increasingly computer-based. Indeed, our curriculum vision is to provide a high-quality computing education to equip our pupils with the computational thinking and creativity necessary to understand, challenge and change the world around them. Our approach to computing ensures that pupils become digitally literate – able to use, express themselves, and develop their ideas through information and communication technology – at a level suitable for their future education and workplaces, preparing them to participate in a digital world. 

We particularly value the fact that computing enables access to ideas and experiences from a wide range of communities, cultures, and viewpoints. This supports the British value of tolerance, which is at the heart of our pupils’ personal development. We also recognise that as a school we have the responsibility to teach our pupils how to keep themselves safe online; we provide them with the knowledge and skills to do so, promoting safe messages throughout the curriculum and ensuring they are able to use information in a perceptive and effective way. 

We grow in Computing by: 

• Designing, writing and debugging algorithms and programs that accomplish specific goals - solving problems by decomposing them into smaller parts.
• Using sequence, selection and repetition in programmes, working with variables and various forms of input and output.
• Developing logical reasoning and computational language to help us explain our understanding of algorithms and express the problems we encounter.
• Exploring the technology around us, investigating computing systems and networks.
• Developing our ability to use technology to make creative content in imaginative ways.
• Utilising a range of applications to express ideas and opinions, researching and presenting data using a variety of visualisation tools.
• Practising using technology safely, respectfully and responsibly, knowing where to go to for help and support when concerned about content or online behaviour.  

We grow in Computing when:

At Irthlingborough Junior School, computing is taught using a blocked curriculum approach. This ensures children are able to develop depth in their knowledge and skills over the duration of each of their computing topics. Teachers use the ‘Purple Mash’ scheme as a starting point for the planning of their computing lessons, which are often richly linked to engaging contexts in other subjects and topics. Employing cross-curricular links motivates pupils and supports them to make connections and remember the steps they have been taught. Knowledge and skills are mapped across each topic and year group to ensure systematic progression. The implementation of the curriculum also ensures a balanced coverage of computer science, information technology and digital literacy. The children will have experiences of all three strands in each year group, but the subject knowledge imparted becomes increasingly specific and in-depth, with more complex skills being taught, thus ensuring that learning is built upon. To enable good progression and a smooth transition for our children, Irthlingborough Infant School also teaches using ‘Purple Mash.’ 

To facilitate this learning, we have a class set of laptops in Years 3 and 4, accompanied by a class set of iPads; in Years 5 and 6, the children have individual Chromebooks. This ensures that all year groups have the opportunity to use a range of devices and programs for many purposes across the wider curriculum, as well as in discrete computing lessons. The computing provision is used to expand the opportunities it presents for many other subjects: for example, TT Rockstars, Spelling Shed, Wordshark and Accelerated Reader are used to support the learning in reading, writing and mathematics. The use of the internet provides learning opportunities for research and presentation opportunities to support Oracy using PowerPoint.