Computing
Our Vision
At White Cliffs Primary and Nursery School, we understand that a high-quality computing education is essential for pupils to understand modern information and communication technologies (ICT), and for them to use these skills to become responsible, competent, confident and creative participants of an increasingly digital world.
We deliver the requirements of the KS1 and KS2 computing programmes of study, and to ensure that our pupils have the digital skills they need. We aim to inspire pupils to continue to learn and apply the skills they learn at secondary school, university, and beyond in the workplace.
Coding & Algorithms
Year 4- Minotaur Mazes
Moorhen and Highland Cow class have been applying the skills taught within the Scratch programme to give commands to move around a maze. The children completed a range of tasks around following instructions, ensuring codes are short and clear, sequencing and repeating codes to make different outcomes and detecting errors when debugging.
Research
Year 3- Safe Searching
Rabbit class have been exploring different search engines and learning how to find out information. The children created lists of questions about their term 1 topic and discussed the importance of using key words when using search engines. They discussed the importance of knowing what is safe and unsafe information and began to disucss whether the information that they read online is accurate and factual.
Online Safety
Online safety is taught throughout year groups across the entire school. The children learn acceptable behaviour, personal information, how to use technology resposibly and how to report concerns and find support from trusted adults. These skills are taught through the year and are reinforced and celebrated during the national Safer Internet Day.
Safer Internet Day 2026
This year the focus for Safer Internet Day was AI technologies and how to adapt to a changing technological world. The day started with an assembly which discussed what AI is and some of the great things this new technology can do. It was amazing to see how much the children already knew about AI, chatbots and voice assistants, and they were shocked to know that when Year 6 were in Key Stage 1 these technologies were not around! The assembly celebrated the creativity and positive things AI can be used for such as photo editing, summarising research online and creating music. It also highlighted the importance of remembering that these technologies, chatbots and voice assistants are not real humans and there cannot replicate all the things that a human can do.
Each year group and key stage had different activities to complete on the day linked to this year's theme. There was also access to a BBC Live Lesson that some classes completed along with other schools around the country. Key Stage 1 and Lower Key Stage 2 all completed personal online safety plans, listing the technology they enjoy and have at home and recognising who their trusted adults are. Upper Key Stage 2 completed the online Safe Choices quiz from the Safer Internet Day website.
Fledglings and Badgers discussed the differences between what humans can do and what a voice assistant can do. They had some great discussions with lots of thoughtful suggestions.
Owls and Rabbits explored voice assistants further, looking at the many positive uses for the technology. They explored the different uses of voice assistants and sorted them into those that were safe or unsafe.
Highland Cows and Moorhens discussed the ways we can use different AI technologies. The children sorted different scenarios, deciding whether they were an 'okay' use of AI voice assistants or 'not okay'.
Otters, Frogs, Ants and Moles all delved deeper into the world of Chatbots, understanding what they are, how they work and how to use them safely. The children produced fact files about Chatbots and presented their understanding.
Safer Internet Day 2025.
Last year the focus for Safer Internet Day was online scams and how to spot and report them. It was amazing to see in assembly how many children across the school had come into contact with online scams, whether this be through the games they play or the pop-ups that load on their webpages. Each key stage had a different activity to complete linked to this year's theme and to online safety.
Fledglings spoke about trusted adults at home, in school and within the community. KS1 classes sorted different information into personal and not personal and discussed which information was ok to share online. LKS2 classes became 'scam busters' and learnt the steps to spot a scam. UKS2 designed posters about scamming and phishing full of information with how to spot them.
