Computers, phones and other digital devices are so intertwined in our everyday lives that it is hard to imagine what life would be like without them - and therefore a solid understanding of this technology, the logic and coding behind it and (crucially) how to stay safe when using it is a key part of our curriculum. It also provides a huge range of opportunities to develop our learning powers, particularly curiosity, independence and reflectiveness. To find out more about what we teach and how our learning fits together, take a look at our skills and knowledge progression:  

• Skills and Knowledge Progression : Computing
   

The aim of our Computing curriculum

We want to help our children to become confident, independent users of IT across the curriculum and in their life beyond school. 

At Bedwell, children in every class and year group will be given opportunities to discover how IT can support them in their learning, and will be encouraged to enthusiastically try out new technologies, apps and software. They will gain the transferable skills needed to adapt to ever-changing software, and be as prepared as they can be for the technologies that they will encounter as they grow up, the vast majority of which probably haven’t even been invented yet. Crucial to much of this is the ability to think logically and to break ideas down into discrete steps, as recognised in the National Curriculum, and these computer science skills are therefore a vital strand in our teaching. 

Our children will also know how to use all of this safely and responsibly, know who to talk to when they come across something that doesn’t seem right, fair, acceptable or appropriate, and know when to turn off the technology and walk away. They will be taught to treat others with respect, too, and recognise that behaviour online should be no different to behaviour in ‘real life’.

Experiences we want every child to have at Bedwell:

• Creating videos and sharing them with friends and family 
• Seeing something move in response to their commands 
• Produce something of their own that makes them go ‘Wow!’ 
• Have chances to try things out, go wrong & discover that the computer doesn’t blow-up and the internet doesn’t shut down as a result

This term's learning

Year 4 - Badgers have been learning to code in Scratch, using loops, commands and a lot of 'if' statements to create simple games - some of us even managed to add scores and timers to our platform games.        

Year 5 - Foxes have been learning to code using BBC Microbits, creating simple games, data loggers and security alarms!