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Computing

At the Ridgeway School, Computing is taught from Nursery through to Key Stage 5, taking account of pupils’ levels of understanding and how old they are. The guidelines from the National Curriculum updated in May 2015, and the EYFS form the basis of how we teach Computing at The Ridgeway.  We try to ensure that Computing is creative, motivating, meaningful, engaging and relevant to the pupils, depending on their individual needs and the targets we are working towards.  

Communication is core to everything we teach at Ridgeway and is taught discreetly in Computing. We encourage “active” sessions throughout the curriculum, this is both to support hands on/doing learning, as well as practical and meaningful experience and engagement, as most of Computing as a subject can be learned without using computers at all.

Computing provides opportunities to develop our own ‘Thinking Skills’ curriculum and also to promote Social, Moral, Spiritual, Cultural and our own school values when learning about how to stay safe on the internet (E-Safety) and about digital citizenship to encourage the use of digital devices in a purposeful, safe and respectful way.

We invite parents to be involved with their child’s Computing education by encouraging the use of safer search engines, ensuring devices are password protected with strict parental controls and that ‘screen time’ is meaningful and creative, whenever their child is accessing tablets, desktop computers or smartphones at home or in the community.

We recognise the benefits of cross curricular working, and Computing forms links with all curriculum areas. Computing is much more than the computer, the device or the tool. It’s about developing computational thinking skills (problem solving), communication, literacy, mathematics and creativity.

We feel that it is beneficial to use a combination of approaches, including the use of a range of devices to communicate by mark making, painting, speaking, writing and typing. Exploration and investigation of how to turn on, control and interact with electronic toys such as Beebots to develop early programming skills and record sound or images with camera or video applications etc.

We realise the importance of engagement (attention and focus) and we acknowledge that deeper learning can only occur when pupils are fully engaged and have resources matched to their personal learning styles.

Computing sits within the Science Faculty and once a year there is a Science Faculty Curriculum Focus Week with a specific focus and theme,

Although we do not assess Computing as a separate subject at The Ridgeway ,through our online Assessment tool: COMPAS which captures the student’s Linear Milestones, (academic progress measure), Thinking Skills and Engagement Steps, progress can be evidenced as part of core subject strands English, Mathematics, Science and P.S.H.E.  If you would like further information on how we assess students, please ask class teachers who can explain how we use the information from assessments we gather to help us identify the best next learning steps for each child.

 

Computing