Computing

The national curriculum for computing in England was introduced by the Department of Education in 2014. The curriculum aims to equip young people with the knowledge, skills and understanding they need to thrive in the digital world of today and the future. The curriculum can be broken down into 3 strands: computer science, information technology and digital literacy, with the aims of the curriculum reflecting this distinction.

The national curriculum for computing aims to ensure all pupils:

• can understand and apply the fundamental principles and concepts of computer science, including abstraction, logic, algorithms and data representation (Computer science)
• can analyse problems in computational terms, and have repeated practical experience of writing computer programs in order to solve such problems (Computer science)
• can evaluate and apply information technology, including new or unfamiliar technologies, analytically to solve problems (Information technology)
• are responsible, competent, confident and creative users of information and communication technology. (Digital literacy)

Intent

At Earl Soham Community Primary School we help to develop enthusiastic computer scientists who are able to apply the skills taught through our computing lessons, to present, compute and create.

Implementation

We use Barefoot Computing to provide a varied and high quality scheme of computing lessons which build upon skills and set challenging tasks to apply skills in a practical way. 

The key stage 1 and 2 computer science strands of the English computing curriculum provided the foundation for development of the Barefoot resources, and as such there is direct coverage of this area of the curriculum. More recent resources also cover elements of the information technology and digital literacy aspects of computing. In addition, the Barefoot resources are cross-curricular, making a broad range of links with other subjects from the English national curriculum. 

Key Stage 1 statements

Pupils should be taught to:

• • Understand what algorithms are; how they are implemented as programs on digital devices; and that programs execute by following precise and unambiguous instructions
• • understand what algorithms are
  • understand how algorithms are implemented as programs on digital devices
  • understand that programs execute by following precise and unambiguous instructions 

• • Create and debug simple programs
• • create simple programs
  • debug simple programs

• • Use logical reasoning to predict the behaviour of simple programs
• • use logical reasoning to predict the behaviour of simple programs

Key Stage 2 statements

Pupils are taught to:

• • design, write and debug programs that accomplish specific goals, including controlling or simulating physical systems; solve problems by decomposing them into smaller parts
• • design programs that accomplish specific goals
  • write programs that accomplish specific goals
  • debug programs to ensure they accomplish specific goals
  • control physical systems
  • simulate physical systems
  • solve problems by decomposing them into smaller parts
  • use sequence, selection, and repetition in programs; work with variables and various forms of input and output
• • use sequence in programs
  • use selection in programs
  • use repetition in programs
  • work with variables
  • work with various forms of input
  • work with various forms of output
  • • use logical reasoning to explain how some simple algorithms work and to detect and correct errors in algorithms and programs
  • • use logical reasoning to explain how some simple algorithms work
    • use logical reasoning to detect and correct errors in algorithms
    • use logical reasoning to detect and correct errors in programs
  • • understand computer networks including the internet; how they can provide multiple services, such as the world wide web
  • • understand computer networks including the internet
    • multiple services provided by networks and the internet, such as the world wide web
  • • appreciate how results are selected and ranked
  • • appreciate how results are selected
    • appreciate how results are ranked