COMPUTING
at The Winterton Federation
Purple Mash Computing
Purple Mash offers pupils a platform to explore creativity, problem-solving, and digital design in ways that encourage reflection and personal growth. When engaging in coding activities, children learn to approach problems with perseverance, developing resilience as they debug and refine their solutions. The iterative nature of coding teaches patience and the understanding that failure is part of the learning journey.
Beyond technical skills, Purple Mash encourages pupils to consider the wider implications of technology in society. Discussions around the use of digital tools, the internet, and online safety allow children to reflect on their responsibilities, ethical considerations, and the impact of technology on their lives and the world around them. Creative projects such as digital storytelling and design challenges give pupils opportunities for self-expression, imagination, and personal voice, all of which contribute to their spiritual development.
Teachers embed reflective questioning in lessons, encouraging pupils to think about the choices they make in design and coding, the process of collaboration with peers, and the feelings associated with problem-solving and achievement. By connecting digital learning to real-world contexts, pupils are able to consider their own values, the consequences of actions, and the importance of making ethical and thoughtful decisions, thereby nurturing spiritual awareness and a sense of purpose.
Example:
Purple Mash Computing
- Scheme: Purple Mash Computing Scheme of Work
- Unit examples: 2Code: Animated Story, Maze Challenge, Online Safety
- Spiritual opportunities: Pupils reflect on choices made in coding, consider ethical uses of technology, and develop perseverance while debugging or iterating their designs. Digital storytelling units encourage imagination and self-expression, enabling children to explore personal values and creativity.
The Core Christian values at The Winterton Federation are Perseverance, Friendship, Joy and Respect. These values underpin our curriculum and enrich all aspects of our pupils’ education. Our curriculum prepares children for the future by developing Heathy and Safe, Trusting, Enterprising and Creative members of the local community. Embedded within our teaching and learning are opportunities for the pupils to understand the meaning and significance of the Christian faith.
At The Winterton Federation, our computing curriculum provides our pupils with the life-skills that will enable them to embrace and utilise new technology. We want our pupils to be able to operate in the 21st century workplace, educating them in career opportunities that will be open to them if they study computing. We want children to become autonomous, independent users of computing technologies, who gain confidence and enjoyment from these activities throughout the wider curriculum. We want the use of Purple Mash software to support learning across the entire curriculum. We strive to create digitally literate and competent end-users of technology. Through our discrete computer science lessons, the children develop creativity, resilience and problem-solving and critical thinking skills. We want our pupils to have a breadth of experience to develop their understanding of themselves as individuals, within their community, but also as members of a wider global community and as responsible digital citizens.
All pupils at Winterton have access to a broad, balanced and enriching Computing curriculum covering; Computer Science, Information Technology and Digital Literacy. This is done through a spiral designed scheme of work with the following key principles in mind:
Cyclical: Pupils return to the key areas again and again during their time at Winterton.
Increasing Depth: Each time a key area is revisited it is covered with greater complexity.
Prior Knowledge: Upon returning to each key area, prior knowledge is utilised so pupils can build upon previous foundations, rather than starting again.
This ensures that the our scheme of work identifies what pupils already know before outlining the new learning in the next stage of the learning journey. Children will use their declarative knowledge (‘knowing that’) and procedural knowledge (‘knowing how’) during each unit of work.
Where possible, Computing units are allocated into linked curriculum themes or taught as discreet areas. The planning of the Computing units ensures that knowledge builds over time and is introduced in an order that enables pupils to build their knowledge of important concepts throughout their time at Winterton. The Computing Long Term Plan (LTP) outlines the units to be covered by each year group. These units, and associated objectives, form the Scheme of Work for each year group ensuring a basis of retrieving and developing knowledge as detailed in the Computing Road Map.
Lesson 1
Establishes what the children already know from previous units and introduces the end of unit aims/project if applicable.
Unit Lessons
Each lesson recaps the previous lesson objectives, before introducing the objectives for that lesson. This helps remind children what they have already covered. The lessons then follow a build up of skills and knowledge contributing to their final outcomes, dependent on the unit being taught. Throughout, there are various opportunities for children to have ‘hands on’ experiences to further develop their computing skills.
Summary
The Computing curriculum is structured into units for each year group, and each unit is broken down into lessons. Units can generally be taught in any order, with the exception of programming, where concepts and skills rely on prior knowledge and experiences. This ‘spiral curriculum’ approach reduces the amount of knowledge lost through forgetting, as topics are revisited yearly. The lessons often build upon skills to create a final ‘project’.
Our pupils study; Computer Science, Information Technology and Digital Literacy elements of the Computing Curriculum in depth. They are able to design, create and evaluate algorithms. They can identify computer networks and how networks retrieve and share information. Become effective in creating media in different forms. Are effective in using data, programming and information in real world scenarios, whilst understanding the risks when using technology and how to be safe.
Our curriculum prepares pupils for life in a technology rich world and develops an understanding of how they can interact with technology safely. This knowledge and learning will facilitate the critical and creative thinking of lifelong learning and the core values and vision of Winterton.
Our week in year 2
Maths - place value
Computing - using the iPad & internet safety
RE - forgiveness
#fullweek ... See MoreSee Less
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