At Ellington Primary School, we recognise the significant role that computing plays in the world, and in line with the National Curriculum, we believe that all the pupils we teach should have a broad and balanced experience of technology. In our computing lessons, pupils are encouraged to develop their computational thinking skills, providing them with the ability to approach problem solving activities with confidence across a range of other subjects, including maths, science and history. From the very youngest year groups, children are taught key skills within the different strands of computing: computing systems and networks, programming, data and information, and creating media. Through these strands, we ensure that pupils experience and become confident with a wide range of software and hardware, including physical computing components. Woven through this teaching and linking with our PSHE curriculum is a deep-rooted understanding of online safety, which is absolutely essential to ensure pupils’ navigation through our digital world.
Children at Ellington Primary School demonstrate their progress in computing by their engagement in lessons and their ability to apply skills from discrete computing lessons across the curriculum. Teachers assess pupils’ understanding on a lesson-by-lesson basis, using targeted questioning and ‘lock-it-in’ tasks with the whole class, as well as having one-to-one discussions with pupils where this is helpful. After a half term unit of work, teachers reflect on the journey the children have taken over the course of the unit and assess what the children now know, or can do, which they couldn’t before, according to a set of end points laid out for that particular unit. They will then make an assessment which is shared on Insight.
The skills that the children acquire in computing lessons are applied across many other lessons of the curriculum, and their problem solving abilities prove an invaluable skill across numerous subjects. In conversation with pupils at Ellington Primary School, it is clear to see the children’s understanding of themselves as responsible digital citizens and the significance of this, particularly as they come to the end of their time at primary school and enter into the wider world where there are countless challenges related to online safety in everyday life. Pupils, regardless of gender or social-economic status understand that they are capable users and innovators of technology and broaden their horizons as they look to the future.