Dr Chips' Whole School Computing Scheme of Work!

"So many ideas I want to get started straight away!"
"So much to take back to class, thanks so much."
"Fantastic, thank you for all the great fun ideas."
"Fantastic inspirational glimpse into how to engage pupils with digital literacy."
"Fabulous and intriguing!"
"You made something scary feel very doable."

I have some very exciting news, make sure you read to the end!

Today I led a course alongside Jon Chippendall aka DrChips_focusing on the computing curriculum and how to effectively deliver it in the classroom. The course is perfect for computing leaders, class teachers and SLT looking for innovative ways to teach computing. I focus on ICT and Digital Literacy while Jon looks at the computer science aspect of the curriculum. What I love about the day is that both myself and Jon are still working in our schools so using these ideas day in day out. I am always asked about which scheme of work I would recommend for computing. I also send them to Jon's site primarycomputing.co.uk as the scheme he has developed is brilliant as it has been written by a teacher!

I asked Jon to share with me some more information about the scheme and how he developed it, here is his response -



Where are you based across the week? 
I’m based 3 days a week in a primary school in north Manchester where I teach science and computing to year 6 and co-teach computing with staff from all different year groups in the afternoon (including EYFS!). It’s great to have the opportunity to see the progression in computing skills throughout the year groups and see how pupils build upon their learning. I’m then based at The University of Manchester one day per week where I’m the ‘Engineering Champion’, which involves coordinating innovative projects promoting engineering in primary schools. We do lots of fun creative stuff around robotics (drones are a favorite at the moment!) That leaves one day a week to work with various schools and write new resources. I’m currently writing a book about the role of curiosity in computing due out next year – if it hadn’t of been for Sir Tim Berners-Lee being curious about exchanging data at CERN we wouldn’t have the World Wide Web!

When and why did you write the scheme?
Before I became a primary school teacher I was in the world of aerospace engineering developing thrust-vectoring nozzles to make drones highly maneuverable! Quite a bit of my work involved programming or a general understanding of computer science, so when I saw the proposed changes happening in technology education in primary schools I was really excited. I think it’s really important pupils get to develop their computer science skills from a young age so I got hold of a draft copy of the new computing curriculum and started writing lessons plans and guides on how it could be taught. At first this was using a variety of iOS apps as my school has iPads in each class. I set up www.primarycomputing.co.uk as a place to share the resources which grew and grew until I’d written the scheme. I packaged these up for schools including teacher notes and programming templates and started selling it as a scheme of work. Since then it’s be great to hear of schools all across the country using the scheme, and adapting it to match the interests of pupils in their schools and the topics they are covering. 

 What does your Primary Computing scheme cover?
The scheme covers the ‘new stuff’ of computing i.e. the computer science (not strictly all ‘new’ as we did have data and control in ICT!). Schools have been combining my scheme with their existing IT and digital literacy curriculum to ensure coverage of computing. Throughout the scheme pupils develop their computational thinking skills, such as algorithm thinking and decomposition, and gain experience writing programs. It uses entirely free software, such as Scratch and Kodu, and includes both notes on computing terminology for teachers as well as assessment grids linked to the lessons. Also covered is the learning around computer networks at key stage 2, such as how the Internet and World Wide Web are different things and how search engines rank web pages. 

The complete scheme for years 1-6 costs £140 (made up of £95 for the programming scheme and £45 for the computer networks scheme – they can be purchased separately)

To download a free sample or purchase the scheme click here: http://primarycomputing.co.uk/a-computing-curriculum/

Here is a Year 5 sample lesson from the scheme -



We are bringing our Computing Course to Dudley in January! You can find out more information about the course by following this link. 

IF YOU BOOK A PLACE ON THE COURSE BEFORE THE END OF TERM (Dec,) YOU WILL GET A COPY OF THE SCHEME OF WORK FOR FREE!!! (Worth £140)






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Lovely Poem for Your Leavers Assembly

Image
I am always asked to put a little video together for our Year 6 show and end of year assembly. Each year, I always include a special poem that I finish the end of year video with. It is called Leaving School by Jade Hughes and it is beautiful: We've now left school, It's how the story ends, Tears of happiness is what we recommend,   It's what we say, But there's always a little pain, Because once you've left, It's not the same,   You could walk through school and you would see, Your friends who have grown up incredibly, But now you've gone, It's not the same, As you may never see them again,   Your friends who have grown up right beside you, Who have helped you through your daily strife, Will go ahead and leave behind them, You who wants the same old life,   But you can not live your life in the past, Hoping that the same memories will last, You have to move on and just be glad, That leaving has made you so sad, As this just shows that...
Keep reading

Using Disney Films for Geography!

Image
Last week I came across a tweet sharing this picture: I thought it would be a brilliant way for children to learn about the location of different countries around the world.  Before we looked at the map, I asked the class to list as many animated Disney films (excluding Pixar) as they could think of. We shared some of our ideas and discussed the origins of some of these stories. Some were books, others fairy tales, legends or folk tales.  This gave us a link with Literacy to discuss different types of stories, how most films are derived from written texts and also looking at some famous authors. We also talked about whether they could remember where in the world the film was set.  I then shared the map with the children and gave them time to look and see whether they knew any of the countries themselves. They had to make estimated guesses as to where they thought each film was set. After they had had a go at trying the name all the countries, they t...
Keep reading

Teaching Direct Speech Punctuation using the iPhone text messaging!

Image
Teaching direct speech is always a tricky aspect, there is so much to remember and very few useful visual pictures that clearly help children know what and how to use speech punctuation properly. Lets look at some of the tips to remember: The words that are spoken have to go within the speech marks. Any punctuation needs to also go inside the speech marks. A reporting clause, who and how they said it can go before, middle or end. A comma follows the reporting clause at the beginning. You need to start a new line when a new character speaks.  I think that is most of them?? I have heard of endless different ways to try and get children to remember these tips - keeping the sheeps in the pen  or speech mark sandwich  which are a couple of examples however they do not have any visual help for tips such as starting on a new line, which is something some of my children find hardest to remember.  I decided to use a different approach, to help cover the...
Keep reading