Autumn – The Internet
In this topic, children learn what the Internet is and how it works. Acting out different processes, children gain a deeper understanding of how data is transferred and how this enables us to view and interact with different websites.
- Networks – Children recap what a network is, learn about the different devices within it and that the Internet is a network of networks.
- What is the internet? – Children learn that the Internet consists of lots of networks connected together, via wires under the ground and sea, and create a presentation demonstrating what they have learnt.
- A website’s journey – Learning that networks connect to the Internet via a router, pupils firstly act out, and then draw a map to show how we are able to share information and images from a website.
- Routers – Children learn how routers connect us to the Internet, explaining how a website reaches a computer/
- Understanding packets – Through a practical activity, children learn that websites are split into small pieces, sent via the Internet which are encoded with information to get them to the right place.
Collaborative Learning
In this topic, children learn about how to work collaboratively in a responsible and considerate way as well as looking at a range of collaborative tools including Google Docs, Slides, Forms and Sheets. They also develop their understanding of the benefits of working together and how the Internet provides opportunities to do this even when people are not physically in the same location.
- Teamwork – Children are shown what collaborative work means and create a set of class rules to ensure that working together runs smoothly.
- Sharing a document – Once children are familiar with Google Docs, they learn a little about some of the features that can be used while working as part of a team.
- Slide Presentations –Children learn about some of the features of a slide presentation program and how to create fun and interesting presentations.
- Google forms – Pupils are introduced to Google Forms, learning how to create and share surveys and questionnaires.
- Shared spreadsheets – Having collected their data, pupils using a shared spreadsheet program to explore spreadsheets and learn how to extract information from the data.
Spring – Web Design
In this topic children develop their research, word processing, and collaborative working skills whilst learning how web pages and web sites are created, exploring how to change layouts, embed images and videos and link between pages.
- Google sites skills – Children are introduced to Google Sites and challenged to explore and ‘tinker’ with it to create a simple web page.
- Book review webpage – Children create a web page for a class website, planning the content of their page and using various features within Google Sites.
- Creating a wed page – Using the skills that they have developed, children create their book review web page, showcasing what they have learned.
- Planning my website – Developing their understanding of how different web pages within a site link, children plan their own website.
- Creating my webpage – Children create their own website in accordance with their designs developed in the previous lesson and evaluate its success.
Computational Thinking
‘Computational Thinking’ refers to the four skill areas needed to solve problems effectively: abstraction, algorithm design, decomposition and pattern recognition. Pupils explore and apply these skills in a range of plugged and unplugged activities before being challenged to complete an independent programming challenge.
- What is computational thinking? – Pupils learn that computational thinking is made up of four pillars (abstraction, algorithm design, decomposition and pattern recognition) and apply these skills in a carousel of unplugged activities.
- Decomposition – Pupils apply their understanding of decomposition to a real world task before analysing Code from Scratch to figure out what it might do.
- Abstraction and Pattern recognition – Pupils explore both abstraction and pattern recognition and look at how they can help us to solve problems using Scratch.
- Algorithm design – Pupils create a game in Scratch using the remaining pillar of computational thinking – algorithm design.
- Applying computations thinking – Pupils apply their computational thinking skills to solve plugged and unplugged challenges, identifying which skills they’re using in each.
Summer – Investigating weather
Researching and storing data and green screen video.
- What’s the weather? – Pupils explore the weather around the world, recording the data into a spreadsheet and sorting it.
- Weather stations –Pupils design a weather station which gathers and records sensor data, explaining how it works and the units of measurement it would use.
- Extreme weather – Pupils design an automated machine which uses selection to respond to sensor data.
- Satellites and forecasts – Learning how weather forecasts are made, pupils use search engines to find data and then record the information in a spreadsheet.
- Presenting forecasts – Using green screen technology, pupils present a weather forecast video.
HTML
Children learn about the markup language behind a webpage; becoming familiar with HTML tags, changing HTML and CSS code to alter images and ‘remixing’ a website’s text and images to create a fake news story.
- Introduction to HTML – Children learn that html is a markup language which defines how a website is displayed, they go on a HTML treasure hunt; investigating the code used to create different elements of the page.
- Remixing HTML – Children learn to edit HTML, changing the text size and content to create their own posters.
- Changing HTML and CSS – Pupils learn how HTML is used to determine the layout of a web page and CSS the look and style of it and then use this knowledge to create their own storyboards.
- Website hacking – Applying their learning from the previous three lessons, pupils adapt a live website and learn about the issue of fake news and the reliability of information on the internet and create their own ‘fake’ stories by hacking the code of a website.
- Replacing images – Building upon their learning from the previous lesson, pupils learn how to change an image within a web page and create their own news story, replacing the text and images of a webpage.