Intent

At The Rochester Riverside School we strongly believe that the use of ICT and the development of computing skills are crucial for our pupils’ education and as a part of their everyday life skills. In order to equip our children for the modern world, we will use technology to develop their critical thinking, collaborative skills, communication and creativity not just in our computing lessons, but throughout the curriculum. We want our pupils to understand that there is always a choice with using technology and as a school we utilise technology to model positive use. We recognise that the best prevention for a lot of issues we currently see with technology/social media is through education.  

Our knowledge-rich curriculum has to be balanced with the opportunity for pupils to apply their knowledge creatively which will, in turn, help our pupils become skillful computer scientists.  

We encourage staff to try and embed computing across the whole curriculum to make learning creative and accessible. To ensure that our pupils receive the highest level of Computing and ICT education, we are teaching the latest National Curriculum guidelines.

Along the National Curriculum guidelines, The Pilgrim School follows NCCE scheme from year 1 to year 6 and resources provided by LGfL/TRUSTNet, while our foundation stage utilises ‘Switched On Computing’ scheme. Our Early Years classes follow the guidelines set out in the Technology section of the Understanding the World criteria in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework. The criteria underpins our curriculum planning and we continually provide technology based activities for the children in order to enhance their confidence using technologies.

Implementation

The subject of Computing is taught by class teachers in FS, year 1 and year 2 classes both as an elite subject and embedded in cross-curricular activities. 

KS2 Computing is taught by the Computing coordinator (each class has 1hr and 30 mins session once in fortnight. The Computing coordinator liaises with class teachers to decide how can Computing be taught across the curriculum. Where possible, Computing is often linked to the main topics being covered in subjects like History and Geography. 

We will endeavour to provide numerous opportunities to use available technology both at school and at home to all year groups. This will be done by accessing cloud solutions included in our annual subscription Just2Easy and Busy Things. 

The school’s subscription to G-Suite Apps (Google Workspace) enhances the use of technology across the curriculum and enables extending pupil’s learning at home. What’s more, the use of Google Workspace improves collaboration on a variety of topics across the school and the MAT. All KS2 pupils have their own Google Workspace accounts which are monitored by class teachers as well as the Computing coordinator.

Impact

The Computing coordinator has got access to the computing assessments and evidence provided by pupils and teachers. As most of pupils’ work is stored online (e.g. Just2Easy, BUSY THINGS, Google Workspace), the progress achieved across the year groups can be easily monitored and analysed.

We believe that by the end of the Pilgrim Computing Journey at the end of year 6, our pupils will have had abundance of computing experience by using the range of technology effectively and safely. We also hope that our pupils will have developed resilience and ability to deal with all the daily challenges that technology can throw at us either in their future studies or when applying for their future jobs. 

Parents Section

What your child learns in KS1 computing

What your child learns in KS2 computing

Computer coding for kids

To find out about the Internet safety, visit our E-Safety page HERE.

BUSY THINGS and Just2Easy (J2E)

To use J2E or BUSY THINGS at home, click on the links above. Your child should have the log in details. KS1 parents might want to ask the class teachers for the logins. 

J2E and BUSY THINGS are packed with creative content related to primary Computing as well as the subjects across the curriculum. Your child can use it to create a digital content of their choice and save it on their account. At school, we are be able to print their work as well as publish it on our website for parents to view.

Feel free to discuss any details with a class teacher or our ICT coordinator.