At Parklands Infant and Nursery School, our aim is for children to become confident users of technology and to develop the skills and knowledge relating to Computer Science, Digital Literacy and Information Technology. Computing education is an integral part of preparing children to live in a world where technology is continuously evolving. We ensures that pupils become digitally literate – able to use, and express themselves and develop their ideas through, information and communication technology – at a level suitable for the future workplace and as active participants in a digital world.
In KS1, the following activities are delivered in sequence to enable creativity based on increasing confidence and competence within IT and Computer Science and Digital Literacy:
• Creation of digital media projects
• Effective communication using computing technology
• Conducting research projects
• Handling Information
• Programming and control
• Understanding technologies
We follow the Teach Computing scheme of work. The content has been organised into sequenced, small, progressive steps to ensure children gain connected knowledge and remember what has been learned previously. Our planning is reviewed regularly and we use the Teach Computing scheme flexibly, moving or altering units of work. This enables the knowledge to be built upon year on year and specifically tailored to meet the needs of our children.
In EYFS, children work on ‘Technology’ objectives and towards achieving the Early Learning Goal under the umbrella of ‘Understanding the world.’
At Parklands, our children develop computing skills through both adult focussed activities and within the daily continuous provision. Children have access to games and programmes on the Interactive boards, iPads for individual use of games and painting programmes, and we have a range of programmable toys (bee-bots) for independent exploration into learning about coding. Adults staffing our Continuous Provision show children how to use a range of resources effectively and encourage them to further increase their knowledge and skills. We also demonstrate how technology is used by encouraging the use of search engines to find out answers to their questions and to watch videos and play music.
ONLINE SAFETY at Parklands
A key part of the Computing Curriculum is Online Safety. At Parklands we ensure all children are aware of how to keep themselves safe when working online and with different technologies. We use Smartie the Penguin to remind the children of the importance of staying safe online and this is also covered through our Parklands Person and PSHE curriculum.
Please see the Online Safety section of our website for further information:
SMSC in Computing
At Parklands we aim to promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of all pupils across the school. All opportunities across the curriculum are exploited and computing is no exception as explained below: