Curriculum Intent

The technological world is fast-moving, dynamic and exciting. At Thomas Jolyffe we recognise and embrace such advances by integrating technology into the children’s daily lives. We aim to ensure that, as children progress through the school, they develop a variety of skills and knowledge to enable them to use technology in an effective and safe manner. Our curriculum inspires our children to explore a range of computing concepts and use this to develop their critical thinking and creativity. It can be broken down into 4 main strands:

Curriculum Implementation

We recognise the importance of safeguarding our children online and aim to teach them the advantages and disadvantages of an ever-growing virtual world. Using a whole-school community approach through the National Online Safety platform, our comprehensive e-safety curriculum aims to ensure that our children understand online dangers and how best to react should an incident arise.

Further information about our approach to online safty and the National Online Safety programme can be found by clicking here.

There’s a lot more to Computer science than coding! Animation, game design, problem solving in context and much more are explored through the Award-winning Purple Mash platform. Children develop their computational thinking skills from Reception where they program and debug simple algorithms using Beebots. As children progress through the school, they are taught a range of skills that will enable to create and utilise a variety of logical, structured and functioning programs. 

More information about Purple Mash can be found here. 

This element of the curriculum is primarily embedded in all subjects in the curriculum and used to enhance and support learning of other curriculum areas. The children are introduced to new applications and tools throughout their time at Thomas Jolyffe and leave us with a range of skills that will support them throughout their lives. Each child has full access to a number of Microsoft Apps through the WeLearn365 suite, such as Word, Excel, Sway and PowerPoint. Utilising the SharePoint, the children are able to save, store and share work with teachers and other pupils. A whole-class set of iPads is available in each Key Stage and they are in daily use, supporting the children’s digital literacy skills and wider curriculum knowledge.

With an enhanced focus on Computer systems and Networks, we follow the DfE funded National Centre for Computing Education unit of study to explore all things I.T. In KS1, children develop an understanding of computers and hardware, type using keyboards and explore both laptops and iPads. Throughout KS2, children are introduced to systems, networks, communication and searching. More information on the Teach Computing framework can be found below.

Information Technology in Key Stage 1 

Information Technology in Key Stage 2

Digital Leaders 

Our digital leaders are ambassadors for the subject of Computing. Our enthusiastic and knowledgeable team of leaders are chosen from each class and meet once a month. In the meeting, the children have a chance to discuss the subject, make improvements to the curriculum, share ideas and take part in a variety of challenges. 

Meet our digital leaders...

Mr M Johnston

Computing Leader