Computing Curriculum

At Charles Dickens we believe all of our students should be digitally literate citizens with a good knowledge of how technology works and how to work creatively with computers. We have three main strands to our Computing curriculum which help to achieve these goals:

Computer Science

This strand covers hardware, networking, coding, programming and computational thinking. It helps our students to understand what goes on behind the technology we use every day and how they can gain the skills to create their own computer programmes and work creatively with computer code.

Information Technology

This strand covers software, email, the internet and how to use data effectively. It helps our students to understand how they can interact with the rich world that technology opens up and teaches them the basic skills of word processing, data analysis, creative digital art and internet research.

Digital Literacy

This strand covers e-safety, e-security and awareness of online advertising and manipulation. It helps our students to act safely and securely online and encourages them to be respectful, safe and engaged digital citizens. We help our students to think about their digital footprint, how to avoid online bullying, the effects of screen time and how to recognise sponsored content online.

We use the Kapow Primary Computing curriculum which is a well-planned and sequenced scheme of work. It offers students the chance to use many different pieces of software from Microsoft Office and Google Docs to Python, Scratch and Canva.

We are fortunate enough to have class sets of laptops and tablets which allow all students the chance to use technology at first hand whether in Computing lessons or elsewhere in the curriculum.

You can find out more information about our curriculum plans here.

You can view the National Curriculum for Computing here.