Computing

'Everyone deserves to take part in creating the technology that will change our world, and change who runs it.' Malala Yousafzai

At St James, we want pupils to be masters of technology, it is everywhere and will play a pivotal part in our students' lives. Therefore, we want to model and educate our pupils on how to use technology positively, responsibly and safely. We want our pupils to be creators not consumers and our broad curriculum encompassing Computer science, Information technology and Digital literacy reflects this.  

There is a ‘spiral’ approach to sequencing the units, with themes recurring year by year. This provides ample opportunity for pupils to consolidate technical skills and achieve fluency with a range of key applications. Our curriculum also encourages creativity, collaboration and thinking skills. We recognise that technology can allow pupils to share their learning in creative ways and that using technology can provide access opportunities to ensure our curriculum is inclusive for all our learners. Our knowledge rich curriculum must be balanced with the opportunity for pupils to apply and share their knowledge creatively which will in turn help our pupils become skilful computer scientists. Therefore, we encourage staff to embed computing across the whole curriculum to make learning creative and inclusive. 

We want our pupils to be able to make educated, informed choices when engaging with technology. We recognise that the best way to safeguard our children from the widely documented issues with young people’s use of technology and social media is through online safety education. 

Our children are familiar with technology resources and we use Computing across the curriculum to support children's learning.  We have excellent facilities, integrated into all the classrooms, with interactive whiteboards and computers, laptops and iPads and an exclusive learning zone with a range of technology. 

We also teach Computing to enable our children to develop skills in using the Internet, utilising different software and programming and to increase their awareness of Internet safety.  Children in Key stage 2 are encouraged to use Computing  in their classwork and projects.  Computing is also used as a resource to support the learning of children with special needs. 

For more information on online safety with links and guides especially for parents, please click here.

Computing progression of skills