Our Lady of Compassion Catholic Primary School
To live as Jesus taught us
Our Lady of Compassion Catholic Primary School
To live as Jesus taught us
OLC COMPUTING CURRICULUM
“The digital world can be an environment rich in humanity … network not of wires but of people."
~ Pope Francis ~
OUR ETHOS
At Our Lady of Compassion School, in line with our Catholic ethos, we believe that everyone has a special part to play in God’s plan. As a fully inclusive school, we welcome all children with their individual strengths and needs and strive to give them the best opportunities to be able to participate in school life, progress and achieve their full potential. We believe that all children are entitled to a rich and diverse curriculum that is delivered through high quality teaching and differentiated to meet the needs of all children. The school has a supportive ethos, and our approaches support the children in developing their collaborative and independent skills, as well as empathy and the need to recognise the achievement of others.
OUR CURRICULUM INTENT
At Our Lady of Compassion School, we are committed to providing our children with a curriculum and a learning experience which stimulates and inspires them, whilst preparing them for life outside school. We aim to develop children as true lifelong learners, hungry for knowledge and understanding, and proficient at transferring learning skills into a wide range of areas. To support us in achieving this aim, implement the Kapow Primary’s Mixed-Age Computing scheme; this aims to instil a sense of enjoyment around using technology and develop the pupil’s appreciation of its capabilities and the opportunities technology offers to, create, manage, organise, and collaborate.
Tinkering’ with software and programs forms a part of the ethos of the scheme as we want to develop pupils’ confidence when encountering new technology, which is a vital skill in the ever evolving and changing landscape of technology. Through our curriculum, we intend for pupils not only to be digitally competent and have a range of transferable skills at a suitable level for the future workplace, but also to be responsible online citizens.
The scheme of work enables pupils to meet the end of Key Stage Attainment targets outlined in the National curriculum; alongside the PSHE and RHE curriculum, this meets all the objectives of the DfE’s Education for a Connected World framework. This guidance was created to help equip children for life in the digital world, including developing their understanding of appropriate online behaviour, copyright issues, being discerning consumers of online information and healthy use of technology.
OUR CURRICULUM IMPLEMENTATION
The Kapow Primary scheme of work is designed with three strands which run throughout:
The Kapow Primary scheme is organised into five key areas, creating a cyclical route through which pupils can develop their computing knowledge and skills by revisiting and building on previous learning:
The implementation of Kapow Primary Computing ensures a broad and balanced coverage of the National curriculum requirements, and our ‘Skills showcase’ units provide pupils with the opportunity to learn and apply transferable skills. Where meaningful, units have been created to link to other subjects such as science, art, and music to enable the development of further transferable skills and genuine cross- curricular learning.
Lessons incorporate a range of teaching strategies from independent tasks, paired and group work as well as unplugged and digital activities. This variety means that lessons are engaging and appeal to those with a variety of learning styles.
Adaptive teaching ensures that lessons can be accessed by all pupils and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. Knowledge organisers for each unit support pupils in building a foundation of factual knowledge by encouraging recall of key facts and vocabulary.
Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to be able to deliver a highly effective and robust computing curriculum. Each of our units of lessons include teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support ongoing CPD. Further CPD opportunities are accessed through the Catholic Primary Partnership as well as via Kapow’s webinars with the Computing subject specialists. Kapow ensures that teachers feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.
OUR CURRICULUM IMPACT
The impact of Kapow Primary’s scheme is currently monitored through formative assessment opportunities. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives and each unit has a unit quiz and knowledge catcher which is used at the start and the end of the unit.
As an outcome of the knowledge rich curriculum offered, pupils leave OLC equipped with a range of skills to enable them to succeed in their secondary education and be active participants in the ever-increasing digital world.
The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary Computing scheme of work is that children will: