Computing

Intent

At Cravenwood, we aim to prepare our learners for their future by giving them the opportunities to gain knowledge and develop skills that will equip them for an ever-changing digital world.
Our Computing curriculum focuses on a progression of skills in: creating content, communicating, research and online safety to ensure that children become competent in safely using, as well as understanding, technology.
Our Computing curriculum supports children’s creativity and cross curricular learning to engage children and enrich their experiences in school.

At Cravenwood, computing is taught throughout the year. This ensures children are able to develop depth in their knowledge and skills over the duration of each of their computing topics.
We have a two-year plan to ensure that all the children caught up with broad and balanced curriculum.
Teachers use the ‘icompute’: Computing’ scheme, as a starting point for the planning of their computing lessons, which are often richly linked to engaging contexts in other subjects and topics.
Knowledge and skills are mapped across each topic and year group to ensure systematic progression.
Employing cross-curricular links motivates pupils and supports them to make connections and remember the steps they have been taught.
The implementation of the curriculum also ensures a balanced coverage of computer science, information technology and digital literacy. The children will have experiences of all three strands in each year group, but the subject knowledge imparted becomes increasingly specific and in depth, with more complex skills being taught, thus ensuring that learning is built upon. For example, children in Key Stage 1 learn what algorithms are, which leads them to the design stage of programming in Key Stage 2, where they design, write and debug programs, explaining the thinking behind their algorithms.

Our approach to the curriculum results in a fun, engaging, and high-quality computing education.
As children become more confident in their abilities in Computing, they will become more independent and key life skills such as problem-solving, logical thinking and self-evaluation become second nature.
Much of the subject-specific knowledge developed in our computing lessons equip pupils with experiences which will benefit them in secondary school, further education and future workplaces.
From research methods, use of presentation and creative tools and critical thinking, computing at Cravenwood gives children the building blocks that enable them to pursue a wide range of interests and vocations in the next stage of their lives.