Aims and purposes of ICT
The scheme is underpinned by assumptions about the aims and purposes of teaching IT at key stages 1 and 2, which also underpin the National Curriculum programme of study. These are that IT teaching should offer opportunities for children to:
- develop IT capability, including their knowledge and understanding of the importance of information and of how to select and prepare it;
- develop their skills in using hardware and software to manipulate information in their processes of problem solving, recording and expressive work;
- develop their ability to apply their IT capability and ICT to support their use of language and communication, and their learning in other areas;
- explore their attitudes towards ICT, its value for themselves, others and society, and their awareness of its advantages and limitations.
Knowledge and understanding
Children should:
- understand how ICT can be used to communicate and handle information, control and monitor events, and model real and imaginary situations.
Processes and skills
Children should:
- acquire and develop the skills associated with using ICT to:
- pass on ideas by communicating, presenting and exchanging information
- find things out and handle information
- make things happen by controlling and monitoring events
- try things out by modelling real and imaginary situations
- acquire and refine the techniques eg saving, copying, checking the accuracy of input and output needed to use ICT;
- practise mathematical skills eg ordering numbers including negative numbers, measuring and calculating to an appropriate number of decimal places, drawing and interpreting graphs and bar charts in real contexts;
- learn why numerical and mathematical skills are useful and helpful to understanding;
- develop the skills of collecting first-hand data, analysing and evaluating it, making inferences
or predictions and testing them, drawing and presenting conclusions, and use all these in their work with ICT.
Language and communication
Children should:
- develop language skills eg in systematic writing and in presenting their own ideas;
- use the appropriate technical vocabulary;
- read non-fiction and extract information from sources such as reference books or CD-ROMs.
Values and attitudes
Children should:
- work with others, listening to their ideas and expertise and treating these with respect eg co-operating and collaborating when using a computer as part of a group to ensure that all contribute;
- acknowledge the ownership of ideas and recognise the value of information held on IT
systems eg recognising how much work has gone into producing a computer file, and how easily careless access can destroy it;
- be aware of the security of their own and other people's information in electronic form eg recognising that they should ask before reading or copying from others' work;
- recognise the importance of printed output eg keeping examples of graphics work safe so that source files may be easily identified when work is developed at a later date;
- be creative and persistent eg when assembling a computer file from a large amount of source material;
- consider the origin and quality of information and its fitness for purpose;
- evaluate critically their own and others' uses of ICT;
- recognise the strengths and limitations of ICT and its users eg recognising that a word processor is an effective and efficient tool to help writing, but, on occasion, handwritten text is more appropriate;
- develop knowledge and understanding of important ideas, processes and skills and relate these to everyday experiences;
- learn about ways of thinking and of finding out about and communicating ideas;
- explore values and attitudes through IT.
Building on children's earlier experiences
Many children will have used a computer either at home or in their nursery and reception classes. These experiences are likely to have included:
- contact with, and discussion of, the technology in their everyday environment eg washing machines, televisions, videos, games consoles, hairdryers, remote control toys, traffic lights and cash registers;
- using toys that simulate real-life applications of ICT eg telephones and cameras and ICT-based toys and games eg keyboards that can save and play back tunes, sound-activated toys, robots and walking dolls;
- talking about computers that they have used, how they made them work, what they used them for, and how they knew that those tools were computers;
- developing eye and hand co-ordination using a concept keyboard, mouse or joystick to move the pointer on the screen;
- knowing how to use the computer safely and sensibly eg not touching the plugs and switches or taking out the disk.
The differing backgrounds children have in IT capability offer a significant challenge to teachers. Children who have access to ICT outside school often have greater skills in handling hardware and software. However, they may not have the full range of IT capability expected in the programme of study. By observing children's developing IT capability, teachers will be able to ascertain what tasks and expectations would best support their learning.
Expectations
The end of unit expectations broadly correspond to levels in the National Curriculum for IT, as set out below.
- year 2 - level 2
- year 4 - level 3
- year 6 - level 4
For units designed to be taught in years 1, 3 and 5 the end of unit expectations are usually pitched slightly lower.
Features of progression
To ensure children make progress in IT, teaching should promote opportunities for children, as they move through Key Stages 1 and 2, to progress:
- from using single forms of information to combining different types of information, matching the form of presentation to the audience and what is being communicated;
- from personal use of ICT to using ICT to meet the needs of, and communicate with, others;
- from using ICT to replicate and enrich what could be done without ICT eg playing a word game or drawing a picture to using ICT for purposes that could not have been envisaged without it such as exploring 'what if' situations and modelling new ones;
- from using everyday language to describe work with ICT to increasingly precise use of technical vocabulary and ways of recording;
- from personal use of ICT in a few areas to understanding a wider range of uses of ICT and the consequences of its use for themselves, their work and others;
- from using ICT to address a single task eg writing a story to addressing more complex issues, and balancing conflicting needs and criteria eg writing an account of an event for the school magazine that fits in the space provided and communicates the relevant details to the anticipated audience;
- from organising information as separate items eg a single graphic image to organising information in sequences and more complicated, interactive, structures eg a multimedia presentation or a database;
- from initial exploration of ideas and patterns to more systematic use of ICT for analysis and design.
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