Aims and Intent

Statement of Intent

At Rosehill, we recognise that understanding Computing is an essential component for functioning within the modern world. Almost everything we do on a daily basis relies on IT in some way shape or form, and it is our duty not only to prepare our children to function efficiently today but also prepare them for Tomorrow.

We hope to harness the natural curiosity of our children and encourage them to think creatively in their work, helping them to become problem solvers and innovators. Through a rigorous curriculum offer, we strive to provide the skills, knowledge and understanding of both physical and virtual technologies that our learners require. Whilst allowing them to explore existing and emerging technologies, we aim to ensure they can make informed choices and understand how to keep themselves and their data safe.

Statement of Implementation

Our curriculum is ambitious and rigorous as we follow the National Curriculum 2014 whilst also utilising the current expertise of the National Centre for Computing Education by following the Teach Computing Curriculum. The NCCE is funded by the Department for Education and supporting partners, which marks a significant investment in improving the provision of computing education in England. The NCCE is run by a consortium made up of STEM Learning, the Raspberry Pi Foundation and BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

To ensure that teachers are as prepared as possible, the Teach Computing Curriculum builds on a set of pedagogical principles which are underpinned by the latest computing research, to demonstrate effective pedagogical strategies throughout. To remain up-to-date as research continues to develop, every aspect of the Teach Computing Curriculum is reviewed each year and changes are made as necessary.

Teaching units for key stages 1 and 2 are based on a spiral curriculum. This means that each of the themes is revisited regularly (at least once in each year group), and pupils revisit each theme through a new unit that consolidates and builds on prior learning within that theme. This style of curriculum design reduces the amount of knowledge lost through forgetting, as topics are revisited yearly. It also ensures that connections are made even if different teachers are teaching the units within a theme in consecutive years.

Within the Teach Computing Curriculum, every year group learns through units within the same four themes which combine the ten strands of the NCCE’s taxonomy. All learning objectives have been mapped to this taxonomy which ensures that units build on each other from one key stage to the next.

Across each year group, there are 6 sequential units of work to complete, each with 6 lessons covering the 4 themes. Each lesson is sequenced so that it builds on the learning from the previous lesson, and where appropriate, activities are scaffolded so that all pupils can succeed and thrive. Scaffolded activities provide pupils with extra resources, such as visual prompts, to reach the same learning goals as the rest of the class. Exploratory tasks foster a deeper understanding of a concept, encouraging pupils to apply their learning in different contexts and make connections with other learning experiences. As well as scaffolded activities, embedded within the lessons are a range of pedagogical strategies which support making computing topics more accessible.