Over the last 10 to 15 years the way we teach computing, or ICT as it was once known, has changed and the primary computing curriculum has “sort of” evolved.
Some people would say it did not evolve quickly enough and totally failed to embrace new and free technology such as cloud computing and collaborative learning. This is the main reason why state schools failed badly with home learning during the lockdown. The DfE supplied a bucket load of hardware and free cloud based learning platforms (Google or Microsoft), but schools, and more importantly children, had no idea how to use them.
Well, the Dfe is determined not to let this happen again and by way of a £30 million injection they want to get schools to teach more about what goes on inside computers, digital devices and how this can be linked to coding and STEM.
This has come about because very few students are taking up computer science later on in their education and the DfE has decided to hook up with The Raspberry Pi Foundation and the National Centre for Computing Education in an effort to encourage primary schools to step up to the mark and take up the totally free set of curriculum plans and lessons that is now on available.
At Aldwyn Primary School we have already taken a close look at what is on offer and have to say it looks pretty good. Although, you will need to cherry pick what you use and we have had to convert some of the paper templates into digital copies so we can use them on Google Classroom.
We started with year 1 late last year and you can see the results by clicking HERE. Year 4 is involved in a much more involved set of lessons covering how digital devices work and I’m in the process of publishing the results and how we managed this lesson via a web page on our website “The Learning Zone” that should be available to view in the new year.