Intent

At Heage Primary School, we recognise the impact that digital technology has on our day to day lives and will continue to impact our citizens of the future. Our primary aim is for children to develop the knowledge and understanding, skills, values and attitudes that learners need in order to use and choose technology safely, responsibly and positively. Our curriculum is designed to ensure that children develop a rich knowledge through a process of enquiry and become fluent using a range of digital tools to enhance their learning, through delivering inspiring and engaging lessons, rooted in real-life experiences, adapted to the meet the needs of all learners. Our long-term goal is that computing lessons are not isolated experiences, but embedded across the curriculum.

          Our six core values are fully embedded within our Computing curriculum at Heage. Children are expected to work together kindly and collaboratively, demonstrating teamwork. They are encouraged to give critical feedback which focuses on their ability to have respect and compassion towards one another. Using technology, children have a responsibility to keep themselves and those around them safe and demonstrate honesty and resilience in the outcomes they produce to showcase their learning.

Implementation

Our curriculum, the Purple Mash scheme, uses a sequential approach which ensures that children build on their learning in a cyclical way throughout their KS1 and KS2 experience. This gives them the opportunity to revisit previously taught concepts, create links between units and build new knowledge in small steps. Units are sequenced so that year groups focus on similar areas at the same time, digital literacy for example, which has a much more powerful impact.

Lessons are designed using an “I do, you do” approach to build concepts, with the opportunity for children to “create their own”.

For each lesson, key conceptual vocabulary is shared with the children at the start of the lesson. This is built on throughout the unit of work and revisited in the next lesson in the sequence. Children are encouraged to use this vocabulary as part of oracy activities within their lessons.