Technology is part of everyday life and for most of us it is essential for our home and work lives too. ‘Computational thinking’ is a key skill necessary to enable children to be ready for life in a digital world. An engaging computing education equips children to use this computational thinking to develop their creativity so to understand and help to change our world. Computing has deep links with Mathematics, Science and Design and Technology and can be used as an explorational tool to expand children’s knowledge across the broader curriculum.

Each class has a set of learn pads and two computers which are accessible to the children. We teach the computing curriculum through the Purple Mash app on the LearnPads. We follow Purple Mash lesson plans and use a range of their resources to help children to understand the technological world around them. We also encourage children to use purple mash at home which is a fun and interactive way of practising computational thinking skills.

By the end of their time at Hatherley Infant School pupils should be taught to:

• Understand and apply concepts of computer science.
• Use logic to analyse and solve problems.
• Understand and apply algorithms to create instructions for programming.
• To store and represent data.
• To understand how to be safe, responsible, competent and confident online.