Ofsted: Inspecting The Computing Curriculum.
Mon 22 September, 2014
Ofsted have made available a presentation, which was created by their National Lead for Computing. It makes fascinating reading for any schools grappling with the new computing curriculum.
Here are the key headlines and questions that arise from them:
"School curriculum comprises all learning and other experiences that each school plans for its pupils"
- Do you have extra curricula activities running in your school that develop learning opportunities in computing for your children?
"All schools must publish their school curriculum by subject and academic year online; there is a legal requirement to make curriculum information available on a school's website"
- Do you have a functioning website? Is all this key information on your website?
"The computing curriculum can be considered as built from three strands: Computer Science, Information Technology and Digital Literacy."
- Is the curriculum that you have in place broad enough and does it cover these three sections effectively?
" Inspectors should consider how well leadership and management ensure the curriculum prepares students for later life."
- Are you giving your students skills, which will mean they can operate successfully in the 21st century workplace? Do your students know the career pathways that will become open to them if they study computing?
" Inspectors should consider how well leadership and management ensure that the curriculum promotes high levels of achievement and links to the school's system of assessment"
- Do you assess your students in computing? Does it link to your wider school assessment? Do you provide for your high ability students?
"Achievement is good or better when: Pupils demonstrate excellent understanding, they know how to use that understanding to solve problems and they make use of a range of technology and software."
- Does your school have the equipment in place to offer a range of technology? Is your support partner working with you to ensure that your kit is future proof? Do you have an action plan in place for Computing?
"Teaching in computing is good or better when: it is informed by excellent subject knowledge, teachers have a high level of competence and expertise, it is rooted in pupil progression. "
- Do you have CPD in place To raise the confidence, subject knowledge and competence within Computing? Do you, as a school know what progress looks like in Computing?
"The computing curriculum is good or better when: an imaginative and stimulating curriculum is skillfully designed to match the full range of pupil's needs and promote progression."
- Do you have a curriculum in place? Is it designed to fit the needs of your pupils? Does it promote progression?
"Leadership is good or better when: e-safety is a priority across all of the school, with all teaching and non-teaching staff receiving regular and up to date training"
- Is this true of your school?
"E-safety is now considered in the inspection of all education remits"
- Do you have the correct policies in place? Do staff know their responsibilities? Do you have systems in place to deal with e-safety issues?
If your school needs help considering these and other questions regarding the computing curriculum, then please contact us and book our free computing consultation service. We now have a site of helpful resources that you can find at www.softeggucation.co.uk
Please note that we have shortened quotes for the sake of brevity and ease of reading. You can find the full presentation at:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3pMOdygjcpvM1ZEODlvUHZZODA/view?usp=sharing