Computing

At Woodford Valley, we recognise how widely technology is used by pupils both in and out of school and the impact is has on their lives and learning.

ICT competence plays an important role in enabling children to be confident, creative and independent learners.

Our aim is that children are responsible, competent, wise and creative users of technology. We foster and support children’s interest, expertise and enthusiasm for using and applying ICT throughout the curriculum. We aim to provide children with the skills, attitudes and visions to operate in a rapidly-changing and increasingly technological world, safely and responsibly.

Pupils are encouraged to use these skills and this experience to support and develop their learning across all areas of the curriculum, using technology as a tool for researching specific areas of interest and drawing upon the knowledge and wisdom of a global community. 

Within a safe and supportive environment, pupils are encouraged to explore and find out for themselves and to have the confidence to problem-solve when using new technologies, resources or applications. Pupils are taught that their contributions could potentially be shared with a global community and this gives them a responsibility for the contributions they create and share.

We support children in developing the wisdom to become critical and discriminating in the information and resources they encounter. In offering experiences of a broad variety of resources and applications, we enable opportunities for pupils to find, explore, analyse, exchange, present, program and code information. Children are taught to think logically, identify inputs and outputs and order instructions to create codes.

Children’s coding skills are built on and developed throughout the year groups, with examples of everyday applications introduced wherever possible. Within a broad and balanced curriculum, at each Key Stage, our Computing curriculum builds on children’s experience of and ability to:

• Develop computing capability in finding, selecting and using information;
• Present, produce and share information, including photos, video and audio;
• Use the internet safely, wisely and responsibly and to understand the audience they publish for and to;
• Use technology for effective and appropriate communication;
• Use technology as a tool, applying computing skills and knowledge to their learning in other areas;
• Organise, store, manipulate and retrieve data in a range of digital formats;
• Write and test simple programs;
• Input, read and write algorithms and codes to program devices and apps;
• Select, use and combine a variety of software on a range of digital devices, including collecting, analysing, evaluating and presenting data and information.

The school uses the internet as part of the statutory curriculum in order to fulfil the entitlement for pupils.  The school has a policy in place to ensure internet safety.