Computing

Our computing curriculum is designed to equip pupils for the ever-evolving digital landscape and provide them with the necessary skills to thrive as tomorrow’s global citizens.

Our computing curriculum is taught as a discrete subject each half term and our ‘Units of Work’ and teaching resources have been developed by the National Centre of Computing Education (NCCE). These are further adapted by our computing curriculum leader to align with our school’s needs, as needed.

These ’Units of Work’ match our pedagogical approach of direct instruction and have been carefully planned to ensure a sequential and layered learning experience supporting our pupils to know more and remember more over time as they continue to build on and develop their subject-specific skills and knowledge simultaneously within each unit. More specifically, our computing curriculum is designed to educate our pupils to be informed, critically thinking digital citizens, who understand how the digital world functions, and are therefore able to assess content thoughtfully and engage safely online. Online safety is a core component of our computing curriculum and is reinforced in every computing lesson, as well as in our co-curriculum/enrichment offer e.g. in themed assemblies.

At Sir William Burrough, computing is taught as a blocked subject; links across the curriculum, however, are commonly made. This means that the computing unit for that half term is taught every day for one week in the half term; this learning is then revisited and revised through retrieval practice factored into our weekly timetable, allowing our children to benefit from the advantages of spaced learning and interleaving. We believe that blocking subjects provides children with the opportunity to become immersed into a topic and develop deep learning in the subject discipline: more time is spent learning and applying knowledge than transitioning between different subjects within the school day.