“Everyone should learn how to program a computer because it teaches you to think.”

- Steve Jobs

Computing vision

At Nook Lane Junior School, our aim is to teach and equip the children with the skills they need to meet to the demands of an ever-changing digital world. We want our children to become creators not just consumers. It is now very much a pivotal part of their world that we should equip them with all the skills to take full advantage of the technology at their disposal. A progressive, enjoyable curriculum provides relevance to their current interests whilst also an awareness of how technology is applied in the wider world.

Children are taught the fundamental computational skills of programming, including the writing of algorithms, decomposing problems, and debugging errors to achieve their objectives. We will strive to give them a varied diet of programming software in which they can apply these skills and encourage them to reflect on the school’s core values of perseverance and resilience when solving programming challenges. Our aim is to engage the children in the latest technologies and provide experiences which link to real life applications including the controlling physical devices. It is our intention the children should be mindful of their own well-being when using social media and how to be safe when using digital technology. They will develop an understanding of what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour online and how to report their concerns. We will encourage a participation in the wider community and demonstrate how, through network technologies, this can bring communities closer together. There is always a choice when using technology and it is our intent to educate our pupils on how to use technology positively.

Making it stick!

To ensure knowledge ‘sticks’ and we develop children’s long-term memory, we endeavour to return to key computing concepts throughout different computing units. This revisiting of concepts such as ‘logic’ and ‘algorithms’ enables children to layer-up their understanding over time and gain a depth of understanding so they can build a deeper schema knowledge.

To enable children to demonstrate connected knowledge held in the long-term memory, children start computing lessons by completing flash backs; they also take part in low stakes quizzes which involve children recalling key knowledge from prior learning. As well as embedding key knowledge, this also helps teachers assess children’s learning and also identify any misconceptions.