Computing

"Alan Turing gave us a mathematical model of digital computing that has completely withstood the test of time. He gave us a very, very clear description that was truly prophetic." - George Dyson

In our ever developing technological world, we know that Computing is an essential life skill for community members. Therefore, we strive to develop knowledge and skills which will equip children to be able to communicate with the wider community safely, to understand the communication systems which are in use, and have greater knowledge of software which may be used in a future work place. 

Our curriculum is built around the three main learning strands of Computer Science, Infomation Technology and Digital Literacy. 

Computer Science is an essential part of a digital and mechanical world. As well as learning how digital systems work, the children learn 'coding' to program screen sprites or  hardware to follow a set of instructions correctly. We strive to check our programs and persevere, if they fail, to 'debug' them. Skills of coding build through the school from simple commands in the beginning to complex sets of intructions in the later years. 

Information Technology  is the application part of the curriculum where children use their computer science knowledge to create systems and content.

Digital Literacy is the area of the curriculum where children learn to evaluate the technology that they use and make safe choices when using the internet. They are taught to respect others online and to keep themselves safe. Lessons in E-Awareness are taught every term to remind the children of how to behave safely online. 

Computing is an essential part of our lives and therefore we appreciate the importance of the skills the children will develop. Through our new computer suite, and hardware based in each key stage, we endeavour to produce high quality lessons which will equip the children with the life skills needed to comminuicate effectively and confidently in our ever widening digital global community. At our school we have many oppourtunies for unplugged oppourtunities too and, as well as a fully euipped computer suite and devices in each classroom, the children also have access to other computing equipment such as beebots, microbits, data loggers and crumbles. 

Below you will see our school's certificate of commitment awarded by the National Centre for Computing Education. Miss Owens, our Computing Subject Leader, is currently working with the NCCE to ensure our school delivers a as full and rich of a Computing curriculum as possible. In addition, the staff at our school are dedicated to taking part in computing continued professional development. Below you will see images from our most recent staff training from Mr Richard Smith. 

Miss Owens runs a Coding Club every Wednesday after school. The Code Club Members are thoroughly enjoying using Scratch, Micro:bits, Cubetto and much more! Please look in our images folder to see what we've been up to. 

To find out more and to see the progression of children's knowledge as they move up through the school, please see our school's Computing Subject Handbook. 

Safer Internet Day 2024 This year's theme for Safer Internet Day is 'Inspiring change? Making a difference, managing influence and navigating change online'.

Providing the children with a tool kit to stay safe online  is very important to us here at Meole Brace Primary.  We started off Safer Internet Day with an informative Worship led by School Council for KS2 and Miss Jones lead an interactive worship for KS1. During the afternoon, each year group had an area of Online Safety to focus on. There were a range of activities happening across the school- the children were thoroughly engaged!

Internet Safety Competition

Thank you for all of the incredible entries for the computing competition where the children were asked to design a new online safety background for the school devices. It was really difficult to choose but we were blown away with Lydia's fabulous design. Please see our winning design and some of the other fantastic entries below. We're thrilled that we have such an engaging, informative background, that will act as a online safety reminder, every time the children log in! Please see images of the entries below.

The children have been exploring 'Interland' which is an online safety game created by Google. It teaches many important online safety rules in a fun, engaging way. 

The link to Interland: https://beinternetawesome.withgoogle.com/en_us/interland To find out more about Safer Internet Day  at our school, please see the 'Files' section below. 

I Belong: Encouraging girls into computing

Interestingly, computer science is a popular STEM subject however, despite its popularity, girls are consistently outnumbered by boys. The gender gap in computing can be traced back to gender stereotypes developed in the primary years. To improve the diversity both in and beyond the classroom, we need to show girls from a young age that they belong in computer science!

With this in mind, we have enrolled into the NCCE programme to encourage girls into computing. We will be doing several things this year to support our girls, including running a Code Club and promoting this amongst the girls in our school, and celebrating inspirational women in computer science.

Files to Download