“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.” 

—Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)

Subject Leader: Mr S. Firth

Subject Governor: Ms. H. Shah  

Intent Statement

At Pinders Primary School we believe technology is an integral and inescapable facet of modern life. We aim to equip our children with the skills they need to live safely in the increasingly digital world understanding that technology underpins every aspect of modern life – be that communicating with others, accessing government services or contributing to the workplace.  We want our children to actively create, manipulate and develop their ideas – harnessing technology to work for them rather than passively consuming digital content. We will work with our pupils to build their understanding of both the benefits and drawbacks of technology allowing them to critically consider the content they encounter online, the choices they make and how to use technology appropriately. We understand that technology is not something that should be shied away from and actively model using technology safely.

We believe that technology is a key driver for engagement and leads to increased outcomes for our children. We invest in high quality technology to support our children in all of their learning across the curriculum to give prominence to its importance and safe use. We use our status as a SMART Exemplary School and an LBQ school to promote the benefits of technology within school and to the wider area.

Aims in teaching Computing at Pinders Primary School:

We aim to:

• Prepare children to live in an increasingly digital world.
• Teach children to actively harness technology rather than passively using it.
• Encourage children to critically consider their own use of technology.

National Curriculum Programme 

We follow the national curriculum for Computing. You can access this on Gov.UK via Computing National Curriculum or by downloading the file below.

Implementation

Whole School Computing Overview

We have split our curriculum into blocks across a 2-year rolling cycle. This is available by downloading the file below.

How is Computing Taught?

Our broad and balanced computing curriculum is built around a clear sequence of progression in skills and knowledge. Children will embark on a seamless journey from EYFS to Year 6 which will develop them as independent and critical computer scientists. We have designed our curriculum sequence around a two-year rolling cycle. We focus on computer science and algorithms in all years during the autumn term and revisit this with a specific focus on debugging within the summer term. During the spring term we look at data handling, multimedia and networks. Our computing curriculum is taught in discreet blocks throughout the year with clear cross curricular links as appropriate.

Understanding our school context, and the issues we see, we deliver our ESafety curriculum separately to highlight its prominence and to proactively tackle ESafety concerns. Our planned ESafety curriculum is delivered five times each year, we also teach additional lessons as required to respond to any emerging concerns.

How do we ensure progression of knowledge of skills?

At Pinders Primary School we have a comprehensive knowledge and skills progression document in place for the teaching of computing. This is used for planning, to ensure a sequenced and appropriate content for specific year groups, as well as a build up of knowledge and skills. Within these documents there are also opportunities for differentiation, in order to meet the needs of all learners. 

Reading in Computing

Books flow through the veins of our school. Wherever possible, we use books as stimuli for new topics in all of our subjects. We have a stimulus book for every ESafety lesson and most of our computing blocks. See our book links below:

Progression of Knowledge and Skills

Adaptations

At Pinders Primary, we believe that every pupil can achieve when teaching is carefully adapted to meet their needs.

Adaptive teaching ensures that:

• All pupils access a shared, ambitious curriculum
• Barriers to learning are anticipated and addressed
• Support is targeted, purposeful and gradually removed
• Pupils develop independence, confidence and resilience

We define adaptive teaching as:

Adaptive teaching is a responsive, inclusive teaching approach where educators continuously adjust instruction, content, and support in real-time to meet diverse student needs, using formative assessment to overcome learning barriers while maintaining high expectations for all, differing from traditional differentiation by focusing on dynamic, in-lesson adjustments rather than extensive pre-planning of separate tasks for groups. It ensures all students access the same ambitious curriculum, with teachers providing scaffolds like extra modeling or support for some, while challenging others, keeping learning pathways flexible and focused on deep understanding. 

Adaptations for Computing

• Break complex concepts into smaller, manageable chunks, providing step-by-step guidance for students who need more support.
• Use scaffolded problem-solving techniques by initially providing more structure and gradually reducing support as students become more confident.
• Encourage peer tutoring, where more advanced pupils mentor those who are struggling with certain concepts. This approach helps both the tutor and the learner deepen their understanding.
• Allow pupils to progress at their own pace, offering enrichment tasks for fast pupils and providing additional review or practice for those who need more time to understand key concepts.
• Incorporate hands-on activities with physical computing devices, to give children more opportunities to embed their learning. Projects or problems that they find meaningful or relevant, increasing engagement and personal investment in their learning. Visualise data structures (e.g., arrays, stacks) and algorithms (e.g., sorting, searching) with interactive diagrams or animations, helping pupils conceptualise how these structures work.

Becoming A Computer Scientist

When children are learning about a subject through a discrete teaching session, they are explicitly told that today they are going to be 'Computer Scientists'. They are then reminded of the key skills that they will learn, use and develop within that subject. 

In computing these are:

We are learning to:

• use technology safely
• solve problems by breaking them into smaller parts
• think critically and reach logical conclusions
• consider the audience or end user
• make efficient choices

Significant people in Computing

When planning our curriculum we highlighted some key significant computer scientists for the children to learn about. These people were chosen for various reasons but are all known for their contributions to the field of computer scientists!

• ESafety Policy
• Acceptable Use Policy
• AI Policy
• Data Protection/ GDPR Policy
• Social Media Policy

You can access the most up-to-date versions by clicking the link to the policies area below.