Computing
The subject of computing is much younger than many other subjects, and as such, we believe that it is important to use high-quality curriculum resources that are designed by experts in this area. At Ashford St Mary’s we follow the Teach Computing Curriculum. The Teach Computing Curriculum uses the National Centre for Computing Education’s computing taxonomy to ensure comprehensive coverage of the subject. To remain up-to-date as research continues to develop, every aspect of the Teach Computing Curriculum is reviewed each year and changes are made as necessary.
All learning outcomes can be described through a high-level taxonomy of ten strands, ordered alphabetically as follows:
- Algorithms - Be able to comprehend, design, create and evaluate algorithms
- Computer networks - Understand how networks can be used to retrieve and share information, and how they come with associated risks
- Computer systems - Understand what a computer is, and how its constituent parts function together as a whole
- Creating media - Select and create a range of media including text, images, sounds and video
- Data and information - Understand how data is stored, organised, and used to represent real world artefacts and scenarios
- Design and development - Understand the activities involved in planning, creating, and evaluating computing artefacts
- Effective use of tools - Use software tools to support computing work
Computing is one of the subjects in which we use a spiral curriculum to deliver. This means that each of the themes is revisited regularly (at least once in each year group), and children revisit each theme through a new unit that consolidates and builds on prior learning within that theme. This style of curriculum design reduces the amount of knowledge lost through forgetting, as strands are revisited yearly. It also ensures that connections are made even if different teachers are teaching the units within a theme in consecutive years.
Our computing curriculum has been written to support all pupils. Each lesson is sequenced so that it builds on the learning from the previous lesson, and where appropriate, activities are scaffolded so that all pupils can succeed and reach their full potential. Scaffolded activities provide pupils with extra resources, such as visual prompts, to reach the same learning goals as the rest of the class. Exploratory tasks foster a deeper understanding of a concept, encouraging pupils to apply their learning in different contexts and make connections with other learning experiences. As well as scaffolded activities, embedded within the lessons are a range of pedagogical strategies (defined in the 'Pedagogy' section of this document), which support making computing topics more accessible.