Computing

Intent:

At St John Bosco Schools, we are dedicated to preparing our students for a rapidly evolving world by providing purposeful and practical experiences that enhance their understanding and use of technology. We empower children to be safe, respectful, and effective users, fostering communication skills through the integration of technology across all areas of the curriculum. Our commitment to equipping students with these essential skills ensures they are well-prepared to navigate the increasingly tech-centric realms of work and leisure.

The aims of our Computing curriculum are:

To deliver a high-quality computing education to ensure students leave the school as competent, confident, and digitally literate individuals.
To provide diverse opportunities for pupils to engage with various software and hardware, fostering versatility in technology usage.
To develop skills in information discovery, selection, usage, and presentation, emphasizing critical judgment.
To instil a deep understanding of respectful and safe technology usage among students.
To equip children with robust knowledge of online safety, enabling them to navigate and address inappropriate content effectively.
To develop computational thinking skills, empowering students to solve problems across the curriculum and in real-life scenarios.
To utilize technology to enhance teaching across all subjects, promoting inclusive learning for students with diverse individual needs.

In Practice:

The Primary National Curriculum for Computing can be split into 3 strands:

Digital Literacy: Pupils learn to use technology to express themselves and develop their ideas.
Information Technology: Pupils learn to use technology to create programs, systems and a range of content.
Computer Science: Pupils are taught the principles of information and computation; how digital systems work and how to put this knowledge to use through programming.

At St John Bosco, we use Purple Mash to guide our planning and assessment, ensuring alignment with the computing national curriculum. Our dedicated St John Bosco computing curriculum integrates computing into various subjects with explicit weekly lessons. Focused on fostering responsible citizenship, we teach online safety through dedicated units like 'Online Safety' and 'Keeping Myself Safe' in our PSHE curriculum. At the start of each academic year, all students commit to an acceptable user document, promoting a shared understanding of staying safe online. This comprehensive approach reflects our commitment to holistic education and digital responsibility.

In a typical Computing lesson, you will see:

Children using the IPad responsibly
Responsible digital citizens that are conscious of their digital footprint
Teacher modelling and children using computational thinking to develop problem solving skills that can be applied to the wider curriculum beyond computing.
A lesson purposefully placed in a sequence in order to link learning across the three strands in the computing curriculum.
Children are given ownership of celebrating and sharing their computing learning with their peers.

How parents can help:

EYFS- Nursery and Reception

https://www.bbc.co.uk/games/embed/cbeebies-tier-1-waffle-explore?exitGameUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fcbeebies%2Fgames%2Fwaffle-and-friends-game

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/games/waffle-and-friends-game

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/games/cbeebies-creative-lab

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/bee-bot/id500131639

https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/

Key Stage 1- Year 1 and 2

https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us/interland/landing/tower-of-treasure

https://hourofcode.com/uk/learn

https://www.google.com/logos/2017/logo17/logo17.html?hl=en

https://blockly.games/