Blackgates

Lead: Gemma Barrie

Curriculum Intent

Computing is such an important life skill. Technology is part of everyday life and for most of us, it is essential to our lives both at home and at work. Through teaching computing, we equip our children with the knowledge and skills they need to participate in a rapidly changing world where work and leisure activities are increasingly transformed by technology.

At Blackgates Primary Academy, we offer children a computing curriculum which will equip them for life-long learning. We are dedicated to fostering high standards in computing education, ensuring that every child—regardless of ethnicity, gender, socio-economic background, aptitude, or disability—acquires the knowledge and lifelong skills needed to thrive in a digital world. Our broad and balanced computing curriculum is designed to empower future generations with the computational confidence and digital proficiency necessary for success in their chosen career paths. We emphasize the importance of responsible technology use, encouraging children to consider how their actions, words, and behaviour impact others.

Computing is a vital aspect of education and everyday life. To that end, we aim to provide engaging activities that help children grasp the fundamental principles of this subject. By teaching them the benefits and potential risks of online experiences, we strive to cultivate respectful, responsible, and confident users of technology who understand the importance of staying safe online.

Our students will gain hands-on experience with a variety of technologies, using these tools to enhance their learning, foster creativity, and solve problems. This approach enables them to integrate technology effectively across subjects, ensuring steady progress and preparing them for a digitally driven future.

Implementation

The curriculum at Blackgates is designed to equip children with the skills they need to thrive in a technology-driven future. We follow the Kapow Condensed curriculum in order to ensure that our children are learning a board range of skills and knowledge that are built upon in a cyclical manner. The condensed curriculum allows us time to embed the basics that the children need and successfully build upon and retain the knowledge and skills required to allow the children to use the ICT more independently, both in computing lessons and in a wide range of cross curricular contexts. The selected computing lessons from the condensed curriculum ensure that there is balanced coverage of the five key areas of Computing (see below), as well as skills showcase units, to give pupils an opportunity to combine and apply skills from different units.

Each year group has a scheduled computing slot and throughout the year and have the opportunity to experience the three strands of the computing curriculum; computer science, information technology and digital literacy.

We incorporate ICT creatively into our wider curriculum and, by doing this, we aim to enrich the children’s learning experiences and ignite their natural curiosity. Each year group has access to a variety of programs on desktops, tablets and laptops, enabling them to explore diverse applications of technology across the broader curriculum.

Safeguarding and online safety play a big part in the children’s Computing education. We compliment Kapow’s online safety topics with lessons from Project evolve. We acknowledge the importance of teaching our children to be respectful and responsible online users. We encourage staff and parents to work together to support the children, ensuring they understand how to stay safe online and know what steps to take if they ever feel unsafe.

Intended Impact

At Blackgates, we want our children to leave school ready for an ever-evolving world, equipped with the technological skills and know how to allow them to be successful in their chosen path. Our children will have enjoyed their computing learning journey so far and be ready to make connections to future learning and advances. They will understand why they have learned something as well as how to achieve the intended goal.

Progress in Computing is demonstrated through regularly reviewing and analysing children’s work to ensure that progression of skills is taking place. This will be done though:

Looking at pupils’ work, especially over time as they gain skills and knowledge
Observing how they perform in lessons
Talking to them about what they know

Please see our Online Safety page, for further information on this area and how you can support your child at home, by clicking on the image below.