Computing

Walton Priory > School Life > Curriculum > Computing

In Computing, our aim is to create 21st Century digital ready citizens who use sequential thinking and problem solving independently while using a range of hardware and software to create unique and creative pieces of work. It is our aim that children conduct themselves in the digital world as they would conduct themselves in the physical world by understanding their digital footprint and developing a critical eye to emerging technologies.

Learning Journey & Subject Handbook

From Year 5 to Year 8 we have planned our curriculum using the National Centre for Computing Educations’ (NCCE) ‘Teach Computing Curriculum’ as a base.

We have planned the units to suit the needs of our children and school setting. We have planned the units so that they are well sequenced across the school but also coherent within each year group. An example is our meticulous approach to the ‘Programming’ units, where concepts and skills rely on prior learning and experiences.

To meet the needs of our knowledge rich, concept led curriculum we have developed the NCCE computing taxonomy into our own concepts to ensure we have a well-developed comprehensive coverage of the subject. This has been developed across all years so that students have knowledge of and can apply all concepts in the appropriate topics.

Please click here to view the Computing Handbook.

To view our Computing Learning Journey please click here.

Computing in Action

Computing sessions at Walton Priory Middle School is diverse and engaging. The Computing Curriculum allows for us to provide opportunities for children to develop their digital literacy through various means. We have a complete ICT suite offering desktops to all children during a Computing session as well as fleet of Chromebooks to be used to both complete ICT tasks and to assist across the whole curriculum. Children also have access to mobile hand-held arcade games machines which they can use to play games they have programmed themselves! Extra-curricular clubs also form part of our offering at WPMS including games coding and rocketry!

Assessment

Formative Assessment

Each lesson taught has formative assessment opportunities included. This will allow the teachers to ensure any misconceptions are recognised and addressed. These opportunities vary in approach and include teacher observation, teacher questioning and differentiated marked activities. Pupils are also encouraged to assess their learning each session. Learning objectives and success criteria are shared with children at the start of every session and then again at the end to allow pupils a reminder of the content covered. This also allows teachers to assess the overall confidence of the class and thus provides opportunity to make changes to any subsequent lessons.

Summative Assessment

Each unit contains an end of unit summative assessment opportunity in the form of a multiple choice quiz or a rubric. All units taught are designed to cover both skills and concepts from across the computing National Curriculum. Units which focus more on conceptual development will include a multiple choice quiz whilst those which focus more on skills development end with a project that include a rubric.

Multiple Choice Quiz: All the MCQ’s have been carefully chosen to represent learning that should have been achieved within the unit. These MCQs have been designed to follow the diagnostic assessment approach to ensure that the assessment will determine both how well the pupil has understood the content and what may have been misunderstood.

Rubric: This is a tool to help teachers assess project-based work. Each rubric covers the application of skills that have been directly taught across the unit and highlights whether the pupil is deemed to be Emerging, Developing, Secure or Mastering the taught objectives.

Get in Touch

Please contact the school office with any questions, comments or feedback.