Computing at Rockbeare aims to foster the love for technology, inspire curiosity and prepare children for the digital world.

'Computers are like bicycles for our minds' Steve Jobs

Keep pedalling those digital wheels of curiosity and creativity!

Our principles underpinned by our school values:

Computer Science Fundamentals: children learn the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation.

Ability to create: They develop skills to create digital content, programs and applications, fostering creativity and problem-solving.

Responsible digital citizens- children understand online safety, privacy and ethical behaviour in the digital world.

Essential digital skills- they acquire practical skills such as coding, data handing, programme and use of other software tools. 

Our Intent.

At Rockbeare CofE Primary School, we are committed to providing a high-quality computing education that equips our children with the essential digital skills, computational thinking and creativity.  Our Intent is to foster the love for technology, inspire curiosity and prepare children for the digital world.  Through a well-structured curriculum, engaging activities and real-world applications, we aim to develop confident and responsible digital citizens who can adapt to technological advancements and contribute positively to society. 

Technology is everywhere and evolving all the time. It will play an important part in all of our students' lives, therefore, we want to model and educate our pupils on how to use it positively, responsibly and safely.  At Rockbeare Primary, our broad curriculum encompasses 'computer science', 'digital literacy' and 'information technology',  taught through specific lessons and also linked to other areas of the curriculum when appropriate to make the learning creative and accessible. 

We want our pupils to use technology effectively (including for collecting, analysing, evaluating and presenting data and information) and begin to evaluate digital content. We want our pupils to use technology safely, respectfully and responsibly. To recognise acceptable and unacceptable behaviour and identify a range of ways to report concerns about content and contact.

Our Implementation

We use the Teach Computing curriculum to support our curriculum, which we adapt to suit the needs of all our learners.  At Rockbeare, our computing curriculum is constructed over a 2 year rolling programme.

The programme has been constructed in so that over the pupils Rockbeare journey they will cover all areas of computing including Digital Literacy (the uses of technology, Computing systems and networks), Information Technology (Creating media Data and information) and Computer Science (Computer programming) with a robust and detailed offer relating to Online Safety.

Every year pupils complete 5 units of computing in depth following a progressive sequence of lessons outlined by the  National Centre for Computing Education (NCCE).  Pupils will complete one unit of digital literacy and either three units of creating media or three units of Computer Programming. The fifth unit of data and information is matched to our Science curriculum and is run alongside interweaving the skills and knowledge required ensuring the computing is taught first with the vehicle of delivery being the science. We teach the curriculum in creative ways to ensure children are exposed to equipment such as Microbits, stop motion animation, video recording and editing, Google Classroom, Beetbots, create QR codes and have access to many educational apps. Children will also be experiencing AR and VR to immerse themselves in the computing world and bring learning to life. 

Here is our curriculum pathway:

Assessment of Computing

Every lesson includes formative assessment opportunities to ensure that misconceptions are recognised and addressed if they occur. They vary from teacher observation or questioning, to marked activities.

The learning objective and success criteria are introduced at the beginning of every lesson. At the end of every lesson, pupils self-assess according to this given criteria. This gives pupils a reminder of the content that has been covered, as well as a chance to reflect. It is also a chance for teachers to see how confident the class is feeling so that they can make changes to subsequent lessons accordingly. 

Summative assessment

In Ks1, when we assess, we want to ensure that we are assessing a pupil’s understanding of computing concepts and skills, as opposed to their reading and writing skills. Therefore, we encourage observational assessment.

Observing learning

To capture summative assessment data of KS1 pupils, we recommend using the success criteria in each lesson and capturing some of the following while the lesson is taking place:

■ The work that pupils complete (marking)

■ Notes on conversations or discussions that you have or hear during an activity

 ■ Photographs of the work that pupils produce during an activity

■ The pupils’ self-assessments at the end of the lesson This data is to support teachers’ assessments of the pupils’ understanding of the concepts and skills that were taught in the lesson.

A pupil working at age-related expectations should be able to meet the success criteria for each lesson by the end of the unit.  At the end of a unit, you may wish to use the observations that you have made across each of the lessons to determine an overall snapshot of a pupil’s understanding of the content from that unit.

In KS2, every unit includes a summative assessment framework in the form of either a multiple choice quiz (MCQ) or a rubric.

All units are designed to cover both skills and concepts from across the computing national curriculum. Units that focus more on conceptual development include an MCQ. Units that focus more on skills development end with a project and include a rubric. However, within the ‘Programming’ units, the assessment framework (MCQ or rubric) has been selected on a best-fit basis.

Multiple choice quiz (MCQ)

Each of the MCQ questions has been carefully chosen to represent learning that should have been achieved within the unit. The MCQs, follow the diagnostic assessment approach to ensure that the assessment of the unit is useful to determine both how well pupils have understood the content, and what pupils have misunderstood, if they have not achieved as expected. This ensures that teachers know which areas to return to in later units.

Rubric

The rubric is a tool to help teachers assess project-based work. Each rubric covers the application of skills that have been directly taught across the unit, and highlights to teachers whether the pupil has achieved the expectations for their age group. Children will also review their own completed unit against the units ongoing success criteria.

Online Safety

Online safety is a fundamental element of ICT teaching and technology.  We have a separate Online Safety policy, and Online Safety sessions take place at the beginning of every Computing lesson as well as in PSHE lessons.

We have a clearly developed and tracked online safety curriculum which is adapted regularly to meet the needs to the children.  

In addition, each year we support Safer Internet Day and explore the theme in depth across the school. This provides an additional boost to the importance of Internet safety which is covered right from the beginning EYFS to the end of KS2.

Our Impact

We encourage the children to enjoy and value the curriculum we deliver. We want the learners to discuss, reflect and appreciate the impact computing has on their learning, development and well-being.

The way pupils showcase, share, celebrate and publish their work will best demonstrate the impact of our curriculum. We also look for evidence through reviewing pupils' knowledge and skills digitally and by observing their learning carefully. Progress of our computing curriculum is demonstrated further through outcomes and the record of coverage in the process of achieving these outcomes.  Learning and understanding is assessed against the National Curriculum statements for Computing. This is both ongoing, to inform future planning, and summative to share with staff, leaders and parents. This ensures the pitch of lessons is well matched to need and that, by the end of each key stage, required content within the National Curriculum is adequately covered to prepare pupils for the next phase of their education. Leaders conduct pupil conferencing and interviews with the children to discuss their learning and establish the impact.  Children will have gained knowledge of the different computing disciplines and will be able to demonstrate increased skills in elements such as research, programming, coding, online safety and digital literacy. 

Our computing curriculum empowers children with the essential digital skills, computational thinking and creativity.  The impact includes:

-Enhanced problem solving- children will develop logical reasoning and problem-solving abilities through coding and algorithmic thinking.

-Confident digital citizens- they learn responsible online behaviour, privacy and cybersecurity.

-Career readiness- exposure to computing prepares students for future careers in technology.

-Inclusive learning- our curriculum promote diversity and encourages all children to engage with technology.

Our computing curriculum equips learners with the tools they need to thrive in a digital world.