Computing & E-Safety
Computing and E-Safety at Twyning School
Our Silver Thread - 'Staying Safe'
Twyning School has an intent that all children will leave our setting with confidence and the ability to develop their skills and understanding when meeting new challenges. Computing is an ever growing, integral part of life for us all and will play an essential part in our children’s future. We will provide our children with the skills, creativity, enthusiasm and understanding of safety to live and thrive in a world increasingly dependent on computers.
What is the experience of Computing at Twyning?
Children learn the fundamental process of computing initially without a device. Through the use of visual, oral and written instructions children learn how computers accept, interpret and complete commands. This is then developed into using these commands on a computer or device to create algorithms for a set purpose and to solve problems. We ensure that all children understand the importance of keeping themselves and others safe whilst online.
What are the core concepts we want the children to know?
How computers/devices receive commands, interpret them and then take action based upon them.
How to communicate in a manner that computers will understand. How to understand communication for computers and interpret it ourselves.
How to think computationally. How to spot errors in communication to a computer or device and how to improve it so that it can be understood.
How to stay safe whilst using a digital device.
What does it mean to get better at Computing?
To develop an understanding of how computers work. To be able to explain how a computer operates, how it interprets commands and executes them and how to understand, write and improve commands given to a computer.
To gain a deeper understanding of online risks and how to effectively avoid and deal with problems.
How have we chosen what to teach?
Twyning School has adapted the KAPOW computing scheme of work. We believe that adapting this curriculum helps us support the knowledge that the children should acquire at the end of each key stage with achieveable steps. We begin to teach computational thinking at Twyning School without computers initially as we believe this makes the step to computing, with a device, more successful.
We use our topics, where possible, to support our teaching of computing. Due to the instant feedback given in computing, children make progress at their own pace with support and challenge through high quality teaching.
We use a variety of different sources for computing resources. Fundamental to all of our computing work is the importance of staying safe online and this is the first topic completed at the beginning of every year.
Learning through Achieve, Create, Enjoy
Computing develops questioning minds. The instant feedback that computing provides allows children to tackle a problem and know straight away if their proposed solution works or not.
Risk taking develops through children trying things and learning from the results that they experience. Computing utilises risk taking when children are encouraged to consider a problem, come up with a proposed solution and then test it.
Presenting problems and empowering pupils to put together solutions makes children wonder and explore potential solutions.
E-Safety (though heavily involved in PSHCE) is important to computing and regularly is discussed during lessons.
