At Southmead, we aim to prepare our learners for their futures by teaching them key skills that will prepare them for an ever changing digital world. Through Digital Literacy, Coding, IT and Online Safety, there is a clear progression in skills as well as allowing pupils to experience a range of software to embed and motivate. Our intention is that Computing also supports children’s creativity and cross curricular learning to engage children and enrich their experiences in school.

At Southmead, we want our learners to be able to apply their skills across a range of mediums, safely, and not be restricted to one type of software or device. We need them to learn to adapt to the fast-changing world of Computing. Computing is taught both in timetabled lessons every two weeks, as well as being embedded across the curriculum. This ensures children are able to develop depth in their knowledge and skills over the duration of each of their computing topics. Teachers use ‘Cocoon’ as a starting point for their lessons, which have a logical path of progression throughout the school. Key concepts are revisited at the beginning of each lesson, but also throughout the learning. A use of a variety of software ensures that children are not just learning how to work on one tool, but having to apply these skills and use computational thinking across the curriculum.

Coding is taught using a range of multimedia from Bee-Bots in the EYFS and Year 1 to Scratch, Kodu and Hopscotch, which exposes the children to what algorithms are, and leads them to the design stage of programming from the end of Key Stage 1. In this, they design, write and debug programs, explaining the computational thinking behind their algorithms using key concepts such as abstraction, decomposition, logic and algorithms. There is also a Coding Club which is held weekly to expose children to the more complex language of coding, such as html or CSS code to build their own website.

Digital Literacy gives children the skills, knowledge and understanding that will help them to take a full and active part in social, cultural, economic, civic and intellectual life now and in the future. The children are involved in making digital books, animations, movies and blogs across a range of digital tools, including iMovie, Book Creator and Edublogs. Our planned curriculum for digital literacy includes online safety which is taught from Year 1 and teaches the pupils to keep themselves safe online and what to do if they come across something that makes them uncomfortable. The lessons are broad in covering a range of issues including understanding current issues such as ‘fake news’ and ‘body image’. The children are also taught the importance of reporting something they experience happening to themselves or another person, or talking to a trusted adult as in accordance with our Anti Bullying Policy and our Online Safety Policy. Further enrichment activities take place during Safer Internet Day.

IT enables the children to use their digital literacy skills to process and present work in a variety of formats, using Story Jumper and Puppet Pals in EYFS and Year 1, then progressing to word processors as well as presenting using a variety of tools, including Microsoft Office, Keynote and G-Suite. Children are also taught to create surveys, gather data and present the information using the many tools on offer in G-Suite.

Effective teaching includes the skilful use of assessment which is done throughout lessons to check children’s knowledge and understanding, which is then tracked on our assessment tracker. Google Classroom is also used to engage our students and immediate and interactive feedback. This also allows the teacher to move between levels of difficulty to reflect the ability of the children in the class.

Pupil engagement is not only fulfilled by a varied curriculum, but also access to numerous resources to teach Computing. The children are able to use Bee-Bots, iPads, laptops, Chromebooks and a Computer Room in order to experience learning across a variety of platforms.
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