We enable our children to responsibly communicate, creatively collaborate and articulate their ideas, their thoughts and their feelings through the use of a broad range of digital technologies
We encourage our children to develop their understanding of themselves as individuals within their online communities. We provide opportunities for our children to be active participants that safely flourish in the wider global community – enabling our children, regardless of their background, abilities and needs to unlock the wonders of the world at their fingertips.
We embrace and utilise digital technology to expose our children to a world of endless opportunities and possibilities through every aspect of our curriculum. We encourage our children to be autonomous and confident users of technology, providing them with the tools that will equip them for an ever changing digital world, opening up the pathway to tomorrow.
At Thames Primary we believe that computing will play a pivotal role in the lives of our children for today and tomorrow. We therefore aim to offer a broad, balanced and ambitious curriculum that ensures that all of our children access a curriculum that fosters a personalised learning approach that is designed and implemented in an ethical, inclusive and equitable manner.
We have built our curriculum around four Knowledge Concepts, which are: Communicate, Code, Collect and Connect.
We recognise that technology can allow children to Communicate their learning in creative ways. Teaching our children the language of Code which is behind everything we see on a computer, empowering them to be programmers of the future. The opportunity to Collect enables children to ask and answer relevant questions and evaluate outcomes. We also understand the need to Connect our children with the wider digital community.
As a result of having received a Computing Curriculum at Thames Primary Academy our children are digitally literate and prepared for their future workplace and to be active citizens in a digital world. Our children begin to access the Computing Curriculum in Nursery and this progresses to Year 6, which is in line with the National curriculum requirements (2014).
Children from Year 2 to Year 6 have access to their own Chromebook. Reception and Year 1 have access to a class set of touch screen Chromebooks, which are more suited to their development and skills. As a Google Reference School for Education we have aligned a Digital Skills shadow curriculum, which runs alongside the Computing Curriculum – enabling children to become literate with Chromebook functionality and Google Workspace, which in turn supports the delivery and implementation of the Computing Curriculum. Children have a firm grasp on how to be safe, respectful and responsible when using digital devices and their associated programs. This is evidenced through the collection of a range of work samples, whole school initiatives, Digital Skills Passports and when appropriate in other forms. This is further evident in our children’s ability to use their developed vocabulary to express themselves and develop their ideas through information and communication technology.
