Computing
At St Joseph’s we strive to prepare our children for a rapidly changing world through the use of technology. Technology is everywhere and will play a pivotal part in students' lives. Therefore, we want to model and educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and safely.
We want our pupils to be creators not consumers and our broad curriculum encompassing computer science, information technology and digital literacy reflects this.
Hi-Impact Consultancy
We work closely with Hi-Impact to ensure our use of technology is ‘current’ and shows clear progression across the school.
Hi-Impact regularly provides children with many high quality workshops throughout the year. These workshops provide children with opportunities to use the latest technology such as virtual reality (VR) headsets and programmable robots.
As our children already use technology in such a variety of ways and on a variety of platforms, E-Safety is becoming a vital part of our curriculum. It is increasingly difficult as parents to keep up with the rapidly changing apps/ games and platforms so it is important we ensure pupils are prepared to use technology safely under a variety of circumstances. To achieve this we use the National Online Safety program which helps schools meet their statutory safeguarding and curriculum requirements through the most comprehensive online safety programme for educators, parents and children.
Information Technology and Digital Literacy
Pupils will delve into five carefully crafted blocks of lessons over the course of each year, focusing on key elements of information technology and digital literacy. This ensures that pupils receive regular exposure to these important areas of the curriculum. The benefit of the Connected Curriculum lies in its progressive nature. Each block builds upon the knowledge and skills acquired in previous years but is presented in a more age-appropriate manner, utilising various apps and technologies that resonate with pupils of different ages. This approach allows for the gradual advancement and development of more complex concepts and knowledge. Each unit is thoughtfully structured to equip pupils with the component knowledge they need to confidently tackle more sophisticated computing tasks. Our goal is to make the learning journey enjoyable, manageable, and effective.
Computer Science
Over the course of each year there are three blocks of engaging lessons for your pupils. Within each block are either three or four lessons packed with exciting content.
The first two terms of the year are dedicated to covering essential key concepts and knowledge in computer science. This allows pupils to build a strong foundation in this rapidly evolving field. As they progress to the summer term, we incorporate physical computing into the curriculum. Pupils can then apply the skills learned in the previous blocks, embedding their learning in a hands-on, practical way.
Our program is designed to gradually deepen pupils' understanding of coding concepts over the years. For example, in Year 3 we start with simple 'count-controlled' and 'forever' loops. In Year 4, we revisit this and introduce 'nested loops' to challenge pupils further. By Year 5, pupils delve into more complex nested loops and are introduced conditional loops like 'if/else' and 'until'. All of these concepts are then consolidated and mastered in Year 6.
Throughout the sequence of lessons there is an emphasis in logical reasoning and computational thinking skills, which are essential skills for pupils to develop to become problem-solvers and confident coders.
Digital Literacy
Pupils receive a dedicated lesson each half term that is specifically centred around one of the 8 themes of Education for a Connected World. These lessons serve as an introduction to the various issues they will explore in their information technology or digital literacy units that term.
To deliver these high-quality lessons, we recommend the Common Sense Media platform This offers lessons and resources that are free to access. Links to these lessons and resources are embedded within the long-term plans.
The Connected Curriculum prepares pupils to navigate the digital world responsibly and confidently. Education for a Connected World, widely recognised as the best practice guide for digital citizenship education, was developed by the UK Government working group, UK Council for Internet Safety (UKCIS), and is modelled after the six topics of digital citizenship education developed by Common Sense Education, a respected authority in the field.