‘Computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world.’

Intent: What do we aspire for our children in Computing at The Epiphany School?

The Epiphany School computing curriculum is designed to enable all children to be prepared for their future, recognise how technology is an aid to learning; demonstrate an understanding of how to be safe and confident users of technology; and to be creative and innovative learners.

We have designed an ambitious computing curriculum, where pupils develop from novice to expert, through progressively knowing more, remembering more and doing more from EYFS to Year 6. This is achieved through increasingly challenging end points of learning, which encompass both declarative and procedural knowledge.

Declarative knowledge (know that) - is the conceptual knowledge and explicit vocabulary used to learn about the subject content. It consists of the facts, rules and principles of computing and the relationships between them.

Procedural knowledge (know how) - is knowledge of methods or processes that can be performed, enabled by the declarative knowledge.

Skillful use of technology is underpinned by procedural and declarative knowledge.

Implementation: How do we deliver our Computing curriculum?

We use the NCCE Teach Computing (Teach Computing) materials to support the implementation of our intent. The long-term overview is personalised to The Epiphany School so units of work complement (or are complemented) by other subjects where appropriate. The units of work for key stages 1 and 2 are based on a spiral curriculum. This means pupils revisit key learning through a new unit that consolidates and builds on prior learning within that strand of computing. This style of curriculum design reduces the amount of knowledge lost through forgetting, as knowledge is revisited and connections made.

To support our teaching of online safety, we use the Project EVOLVE toolkit, which is based on the “Education for a Connected World” (EFACW) framework. This covers knowledge, skills, behaviours and attitudes across eight areas of our online lives. At The Epiphany School, we focus on the areas of: ‘Online bullying’ in the autumn term, linked to Anti-Bullying week; and ‘Health, well-being and lifestyle’ in the spring term, linked to Safer internet day. Computer safety is taught during the summer term within our PHSE curriculum across the school.

Our computing curriculum is broken down into 4 strands. These strands do not sit separately from one another, as knowledge from each strand complements the others and some subject content only exists at the interplay between these 4 strands. Online safety is embedded across all strands, as well as taught discretely.

Impact: How do we know our curriculum is effective?

Assessment: Assessment will take place in line with the school’s assessment policy. Identified key learning provide criteria by which to assess pupils, supporting teachers to ascertain what pupils know and can do. Teachers should assess pupils throughout lessons and plan subsequent teaching and learning in response to this. Assessment will take many forms including teacher observation, rich questioning, talking with pupils and marking children’s work. Teachers will identify pupils as ‘focus children’ in a sequence if they have not met the key learning and may need further support.

High quality outcomes: Pupils should be articulate and knowledgeable about the key learning identified in each unit of work. Work produced may be presented in pupils’ books or evident in programs or digital artefacts created.

Monitoring: Monitoring activities may include pupil interviews, informal discussion with staff, looking at pupils’ learning, examination of planning and learning walks in order to assess the effectiveness of the curriculum in meeting the intent.

Supporting documentation

• Whole school curriculum overview
• Long term computing overview
• Computing progression
• Computing Medium Term Plans