Computing

Digital Literacy, communication and problem-solving are fundamental to living in our digital age. It is necessary for us to support our pupils to become digital citizens; individuals responsible for how they use technology to interact with the world around them. At its heart, digital literacy is the ability to use practical knowledge and critical thinking to safely, effectively and responsibly create and engage with digital content using a range of technologies.

Our Computing curriculum focuses on three core areas.

Computer Science
Children in all year groups are taught the basics of computer programming. Younger children use hands on resources such as ‘Beebots’ and ‘Probots’ to begin to understand coding concepts. This is extended in older year groups as we introduce Purple Mash and Scratch to develop increasing complex computer games, programs and animations.  

E-Safety 
E-Safety plays a fundamental role in our safeguarding and child protection measures. We recognise that we must ensure our processes and systems keep children safe, while also teaching pupils about online safety. Our school promotes the SMART approach (Safe, Meet, Accept, Reliable and Tell) developed by Childnet International. We discuss e-safety at the beginning of each academic year with both children and parents. Pupils are given school email accounts from Year 1 and are supported in using these responsibly and safely.  

Data and Multimedia
We aim for pupils to be competent and confident in a variety of software programs. Younger children start with the 2simple programs before moving onto Microsoft Office and, later, Google Apps, Inkscape, Logo, Beetle Blocks and Weebly. Central to the curriculum is understanding how different software packages work together; for example, pupils might record a short film and embed it into a website.   

Each key stage in the Prep School has access to a set of 25 iPads, in addition to two fully equipped ICT suites. They are used extensively in lessons across the curriculum to support learning as well as for dedicated Computing lessons. Pupils from Year 1 onwards are taught the basics of computer programming, before progressing to designing computer games in Year 2 and using programmes such as Scratch from Year 3. By Year 6 pupils are designing their own digital apps!