ICT | Usworth Colliery Primary School

ICT Curriculum Intent

Enjoy achieving together … by being the best that we can be!

Our pupils learn best through experiential learning and the ICT curriculum is built around this. At Usworth Colliery, we endeavour to give children a solid grasp of how technology impacts on their lives both inside and outside of school. This is achieved primarily through providing the children with a varied curriculum that exposes them to current developments such as robotics and micro-computing. We also use links with outside agencies, for example Nissan as part of The First Lego League, in order to widen the aspirations of our young learners and offer a range of experiences that put their new knowledge into a real world context. Through this approach, pupils are offered a curriculum which is exciting, engaging and ambitiously designed to allow all pupils to develop skills and knowledge that can prepare them for life.

To promote resilience and independence our curriculum encourages pupils to adopt a growth mind-set in order to learn from mistakes and develop as learners. We want our children to express themselves creatively and, when appropriate, encourage them to be curious and independent learners who see the benefits of making mistakes when learning.

Our curriculum is based on the expectations of the national curriculum and is designed to be both progressive and matched to the needs and interests of our pupils. Long term plans are designed to be developmental and progressive and each new topic or learning experience builds on the skills knowledge and understanding previously taught.

To support the unique needs of our pupils the curriculum has vocabulary at its core. As pupils progress through school, children’s vocabulary is improved through consistent exposure to new subject specific vocabulary that is introduced as skills progress. Teaching builds on previously learnt vocabulary and the acquisition of this allows the children to discuss and reason within the subjects. Pupils access a wide variety of digital content to develop their digital literacy and spark their interest and enthusiasm for learning. It is important that our children have a strong set of basic skills which they are comfortable and confident with so that they can apply them as technology develops. Furthermore, our children often have a strong existing skill set, beyond what the curriculum covers, particularly with handheld technology. We therefore encourage pupils to be responsible and self-aware when using ICT in everyday life, encouraging them to be respectful and tolerant and to consider carefully the content they interact with.

Our Curriculum creates learners who are:

ICT in Early Years Foundation Stage

Children in EYFS spend time in our ICT suite every week. Activities include using online games, collecting data and creating digital content (such as pictures). As the year progresses, these activities are designed to help children become more comfortable when using a PC and familiarise themselves with common tools and software that they will encounter in Key Stage 1. Children also begin to consider how to stay safe when using ICT. This is taught using appropriate stories, for example PeguinPig by Stuart Spendlow, and via discussion of good practice when completing the activities above. Alongside dedicated time in the ICT room, each week pupils also watch a section of Maddie's Do You Know or Grace's Amazing Machines and discuss how technology contributes to everyday activities and to the products that we use.