Computing

Overview

Hello? The future calling, and it definitely involves a plug.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has an increasingly significant impact on all aspects of modern living and we know At Charlton Manor we know how important Information Computing Technology is to our learners. Over the past few years, we can all agree, ICT has been the thread keeping us connected and together, when we have never been so physically apart.

At Charlton Manor, our main aim is equip pupils with the tools to become digitally literate able to use and express themselves safely feel confident to develop their ideas through ICT. embedding fundamental skills such as problem solving, resilience, analytical thinking and sense of curiosity about the world around them. Our curriculum is laid out in a way that deepens their computational knowledge and understanding from when they arrive at Nursery, to when they leave us in Year 6. Ultimately, we want our students to become active, outward-facing participants in an ever-changing digital world.

At Charlton Manor, we think that ICT is uniquely placed in that it is able to enable enhance and extend every other subject that we teach. From enacting simple programmes on Beebots and Code-a-pillars, to using search engines to research and evaluate sources, through to eventually using code to create their own programs (games!) each year builds upon what they know already.

Aims

We aim as a school:

  • Will be taught to use ICT and information sources effectively to find things out; develop ideas and make things happen; exchange and share information; and review, modify and evaluate work as it progresses, as required by the National Curriculum for ICT

  • To enable all children to build their ICT skills to a high standard

  • will develop an understanding of the uses, importance and limitations of ICT in the modern world including the need to avoid undesirable materials

  • To provide opportunities to use ICT in a variety of curriculum areas

  • To ensure that there is continuity and progression in ICT skills throughout the school

  • To teach children to use ICT purposefully to achieve a significant outcome

  • To enable children to work with increasing confidence using a variety of ICT equipment

  • To keep up to date with the fast rate of change in ICT

  • Will have regular and equal access to a broad and balanced ICT experience across the whole curriculum

  • Will develop a positive attitude to ICT and develop their ICT capability through both independent and collaborative working

  • Take charge of their learning and become independent in their use of ICT

  • Will use ICT to support, extend and enhance their learning

Use of ICT throughout the National Curriculum

At Charlton Manor Primary School we believe that ICT should be used across the curriculum in exciting and meaningful ways.

ICT is taught across the curriculum in two ways. The first with an ICT based objective within a subject context, for example Learning Objective: To be able to use fonts in instructional writing or Learning Objective: To be able to record sound effects for a historical play.

The second way is by using a subject objective with an ICT tool. For example Learning Objective: To investigate life in Victorian times through online census data or Learning Objective: To sequence a recipe using digital photos.

Resources: What Do we have?

The school has a wide and constantly changing range of ICT equipment and resources. These range from iPads, tablets and laptops in the classrooms, interactive tables, and a fully-interactive sensory room. Children can use this space to be fully immersed into whatever they may be learning about in their current topic. Such as, experiencing a rocket launch whilst writing about the Space Race or what it would have been like to be in an air raid shelter during WW2 – or even flying around as a superhero! Out in the Secret garden, we have a Bird Box Cam and Bee Cam with a series of cameras that are placed throughout the school, which link back to class. This means we can observe nature and changes in time, from the comfort of the classroom. These are great links to Science, Geography and Maths.

ICT and SEN

The inclusive nature of Charlton Manor is reflected through the wide range of ICT resources for those children with Special Educational Needs (SEN). All ipads have a set of apps specially chosen by the school’s SEN Co-ordinator (SENCO).

There are 2 SMART Tables used for increasing children’s motor skills, and the house has an interactive floor, which has a number of uses from sensory stimulation to behavioural uses.

Ensuring children’s safety online

All children are supervised while they are on the internet. The schools internet access is heavily filtered and ensures that children are not exposed to anything inappropriate. If they do see something online that worries them, children have a good understanding of how to keep themselves safe online. This is also reinforced regularly during PSHE lessons, assemblies and in line with national ‘safety online’ days.

Pupil Voice

'We have used ICT for history facts about the past and to research what we don’t know'

'Online safety is when you shouldn’t go on anything not for your age'

'An algorithm is where you put pieces of code together to make something do what you want'

'The internet is useful for looking up places or pictures'