Technology in the Curriculum
At the core of our curriculum is an innovative and authentic learning experience, rich in the use of new technologies, and which is personalised and responsive to the needs of our pupils.
Our curriculum provides a range of purposeful and real-world learning episodes or ‘explores’. By using technology to create exceptional learning experiences, we help bring the curriculum and learning to life with children having many opportunities to collaborate, problem solve and develop critical thinking skills.
We also seek to build on children’s prior learning to accelerate progress for all and assessment for learning is key. Technology enables this to happen in a timely and responsive manner.
We also believe feedback from peers and the wider learning community is extremely powerful to motivate and engage pupils so using technology to reach a wider and even a global audience is important to us to share our proud achievements and connect with the wider learning community.
Although technology is a key driver of our school, for us it is more about how technology is used to engage, enhance, enable and extend learning rather than the technology itself. The experience of pupils is balanced and high quality off line activities and classroom experiences are highly valued.
In order to ensure our pupils become well-rounded, thoughtful and safe users of technology in an increasingly digital world, we have developed a robust Digital Learner Framework to set out our expectations for technology use across the school. This framework focuses on the progression of skills across the school in three key areas: Digital Literacy, Digital Citizenship and Technological Skills.
Digital Literacy – the skills to communicate, learn, collaborate and problem solve.
Digital Citizenship – the knowledge and understanding of how to use technology safely and responsibly.
Technological Skills – specific digital skills and opportunities to use technology innovatively and creatively, such as the creation of digital animation and programming.
Technology and digital opportunities are interwoven throughout the curriculum to develop confident and discerning users of technology. Our pupils will be equipped with the knowledge and skills to understand when a digital solution is the best approach for different tasks.
Our classrooms are equipped with a range of technology to bring learning to life and ensure progress for all learners, ranging from interactive smart boards, to laptops and iPads, to audio-visual recording technology, to programming and robotics kits.
Through technology-enabled lessons, pupils might visit another planet or time period in our interactive immersive room, program a robot to complete a task or create a digital animation to retell a story.
Technology provides the opportunity to share our learning with each other, the wider school community and even a global audience. This motivates pupils to excel in their learning and gives them a sense of pride in their achievements.