Can you believe we’re already into the sixth week of the Autumn Term! Whether you are new to leading computing or an experienced computing lead, this post will help you navigate through your first term.

As the new term begins, it is a good time to assess where your current computing curriculum is, what is working well and what could be improved. It is also a good time to think about both your own CPD and that of your staff.

So where do you begin?

Staff Audits

A useful starting point will be to do an audit of your staff to gather their thoughts in their confidence and ability to teach the computing curriculum. You may also want a secondary audit to look at key digital skills for the devices you use in school and the common platforms that are expected to be used. Once you have this information, you can then plan CPD accordingly.

Long Term Plans

Ensure your long term plans are up to date and at a minimum cover the National Curriculum statements, taking into account the three strands of the computing curriculum. Your overview should ensure a broad coverage of computer science, information technology and digital literacy and you should be able to see the progression of skills and knowledge acquired as the pupils move through your school setting. Teach Computing has a fantastic free scheme available for Years 1 – 6 if you are looking to revamp your curriculum.  Once your plans are finalised, ensure that these are displayed on your school website.

If you have a long term plan already established in school, then it will be useful to do both a staff and pupil voice audit to find out how the units went last year and if any tweaks are needed.

Evidencing and Assessment

Set the expectations now for evidencing and assessment of your subject. How will pupils and staff evidence their work? Will this be the same for digital and unplugged activities? Will assessment be both formative and summative? Later in the year we will delve into these areas further.

Dates for your Diary

Look ahead over the year to plan extracurricular activities and events. Below are a few things to add to your calendar.

Bebras Challenge : 6th – 17th November

Internet Safety Day: 6th February

Carers Week: 5th – 11th June

Action Planning

And finally, get your action plan ready. Check through your actions from last year, or from the previous lead and decide on the steps for this year taking into account your audits, assessment and progression of the pupils to decide on the year ahead.