Discrete ICT - Core Themes
The programmes of study for ICT group the knowledge, skills and understanding that children require into the following themes:
Finding things out
This theme is about children understanding and using electronic information to handle data and undertake research. It is about understanding that vast amounts of information exist and about having effective enquiry skills in order to access information with a view to relevance, bias and accuracy. It is about children understanding the strengths of storing, ordering, presenting and rapidly sorting data in electronic formats, and the importance of this in commerce and society. It is about the use of appropriate technologies and knowing what questions to ask and tools to use in order to solve a problem. It is about children developing enquiry skills to plan, design and implement an investigation using appropriate tools, predicting possible and unlikely outcomes. It is about children using reasoning skills to determine the quality, reliability and validity of evidence, data and information.
Developing ideas and making things happen
This theme is about children understanding and using elements of control technology, sensing, modelling and simulations in their learning. It is about them making changes and understanding that they can explore options to answer “what if” type questions. It is about children solving problems by prediction, trial and error and in refining instructions following feedback to control something. It is about them knowing that a simulation can represent real or imaginary situations and that this allows you to try things out that may be difficult to do in real life. It is about children identifying patterns, sequences, and cause and effect and that solutions can be modelled using ICT tools.
Exchanging and sharing information
This theme is about children being able to communicate effectively with others through the sharing of information and in the presentation of their ideas in electronic format. It is about them understanding the strengths and dangers of electronic communication technologies and being aware of, and having an empathy with, an intended audience. It is about being able to draw upon the multimodality that ICT offers in order to best meet the needs of an intended audience. It is about being able to utilise a wide range of electronic formats such as digital images, digital video, text, sound and animations in their work. It about children being able to communicate within and beyond the school including dialogue with experts.
Reviewing and modifying work as it progresses
This theme, often integrated into the other themes, is about how children evaluate their learning and that of others and how they use that evaluation to inform further developments. It is about them being clear about learning intentions and evaluating their progress against them through questioning, discussion and evaluation and using the outcomes of these to inform future action. It is about testing and refining, assessing, justifying, predicting and hypothesising, problem solving and checking for accuracy. It is about children understanding the advantages, dangers and moral issues in using ICT to manipulate and to present information to potentially large unknown audiences.
The following documents examine these core themes in relation to the National Curriculum attainment targets for ICT and provides a list of activities (QCA and NELC) aimed at supporting teachers in delivering a comprehensive ICT curriculum for primary pupils.
Developing ideas and making things happen
