iCompute for Primary Schools

A primary computing scheme of work fully matched to the National Curriculum for Computing

iCompute for Primary Schools

Step-by-step lesson plans and all the resources schools need to teach computing creatively and confidently

iCompute for Primary Schools

Discover how easy teaching computing can be

iCompute for Primary Schools

Don't just keep up with computing. Get ahead!

iCompute Primary Computing

Computing Curriculum

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written by Liane O'Kane

Computer Scientist, Software Engineer and Primary Computer Science Master Teacher

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Computing from EYFS to Year 6 - BETT & ERA Awards Nominated

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Free Halloween Computing Lesson

By Liane O'Kane October 20, 2024 October 25, 2024 Primary Computing, Resources, Themed Activities

Create a Halloween Web page with HTML

Click to download

Teachers and pupils alike love a themed lesson so I’ve created a new activity for Halloween computing that teaches basic HTML/CSS for pupils aged 9-11.

Each term, I create free themed computing lessons and I’ve written another step-by-step lesson plan and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using in my computing classes and have added to iCompute’s primary computing schemes of work. This activity has been adapted from a cross-curricular computing lesson in iCompute Across the Curriculum.

Halloween is approaching and you’re having a party! Using basic HTML and CSS your pupils will create an invitation to their party in the form of a web page. In this activity children learn how HTML formats web content and CSS styles it using age-appropriate syntax and tools.

Includes HTML tutorial

Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Plus HTML Mozilla Thimble tutorial for teacher and pupil support. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative!

Cheat Sheet

Check out my other free seasonal primary computing lesson plans and resources elsewhere on this blog and by visiting icompute-uk.com/free-stuff.html

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Halloween 🎃 Computational Thinking Puzzles

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By Liane O'Kane October 20, 2024 October 25, 2024 Computational Thinking, Primary Computing, Themed Activities

Scarily Good Free Resources for Primary Computing

Help your pupils get dead good at problem solving using key computational thinking skills such as abstraction, decomposition, generalisation and pattern spotting with our free Halloween themed puzzles.

Computational thinking lies at the heart of the National Curriculum for Computing and our best selling (Educational Resources Awards nominated) series of Computational Thinking Puzzle books 1-4 help pupils independently practice the skills they learn in their computing lessons.

Grab yourself a treat with our free puzzles for Halloween. Visit www.icompute-uk.com for more free themed lesson plans and resources to support teaching primary computing.

Download the puzzles

Editable & Printable Scratch Blocks

By Liane O'Kane May 10, 2024 October 25, 2024 Primary Computing, Resources, Robotics, Scratch, Unplugged

Scratch Classroom Display & Unplugged Activities

Scratch 3.0 Blocks

This version is for Scratch 3.0 and includes all category blocks along with Extensions: Microbit, Makey Makey, Video Sensing, Pen, LEGO WeDo, LEGO EV3, Music, Text to Speech and Translate.

Available to download by clicking/tapping the Periodic Table of Scratch 3 Blocks image (see below). The blocks can be edited and scaled using image editing tools (e.g. Illustrator, Inkscape, Vectr). The blocks are also provided in .png format.

It’s important that children be given opportunities to interact with physical programming blocks to help them understand both their function and the underlying concepts. I use them in groups for the children to program me and/or each other as well as programming using Scratch 3 itself.

Click to Download

Published by iCompute and licensed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) – Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.

Also available in the same format are Scratch 2.0 blocks and Scratch Jr blocks from this post.

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Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Improve Teaching and Learning

By Liane O'Kane March 25, 2024 October 25, 2024 Primary Computing

I’ve been busy this last few months creating two units for our computing curriculum about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning. It has, however, been less busier than usual creating the content because I’ve been using AI to help me!

I have access to and have used a variety of AI tools. I have ChatGBT 4, DALL-E, Adobe Illustrator, Canva, Vyond and SchoolAI. All of which have AI features.

Of all the tools I used, SchoolAI has been the quickest, most intuitive and most effective for teaching purposes in reducing workload and helping create challenging, engaging, activities for my pupils.

I started with the Syllabus and Course Outline tools, inputing the unit objectives for a series of progressive 6 week lessons. With this as a spring board, I adapted where necessary and then used it as a basis for creating 6 lesson plans. Using high quality, specific, prompting, the tool helped create engaging hands-on practical learning activities, which I tweaked by generating differentiated (easier/harder) activities.

I used the worksheet tool, which also incorporated generated AI images. Build Your Own for worksheets and storyboard templates. I created my own AI space for pupils to engage with a Turing Test (where children ask an AI chatbot questions to find out whether they’re talking to a human or not). I also used the rubric tool for the end of unit assessment guidance.

I’m incredibly impressed with SchooAIs potential. Used judiciously, it could transform teaching and learning. As with all AI tools, it’s all about the prompting! An AI’s output is directly related to the quality of the input. So what you ask SchoolAI tools to do, should be well thought out, specific and, crucially, checked and adapted where necessary.

Get an SchoolAI account yourself and explore the possibilities. Also, visit icompute-uk.com for the AI and Machine Learning units for Year 4 and Year 6 that AI helped me create.

Free Valentines Day Coding Lesson

By Liane O'Kane January 30, 2024 January 31, 2024 Primary Computing, Resources, Scratch, Themed Activities

Valentines Day – Spreading the Love with Code!

Play and code this Valentines day with our free coding activity: a romantic themed Cupid game for pupils aged 7-11 using Scratch.

Throughout the year, I create free themed computing lessons, and I’ve written another step-by-step lesson plan and some teacher/pupil computing resources that I’m using in my computing classes and am adding to iCompute to celebrate Valentines Day.

Love is in the air but Cupid needs a little help aiming his arrow! Challenge your pupils to program Cupid’s bow to respond to user input and aim to catch the heart of a love interest.

Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Plus program templates and partially-written programs for teacher and pupil support. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative!

Check out my other free themed primary computing lesson plans by visiting icompute-uk.com/free-stuff

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Pancake Day Computational Thinking Problem

By Liane O'Kane January 11, 2024 January 11, 2024 Primary Computing

Flipping Fabulous Pancake Day Problem

Help your pupils get flipping fabulous at problem solving using key computational thinking skills such as abstraction, decomposition, generalisation and pattern spotting with this free Pancake Day problem.

Computational thinking lies at the heart of the National Curriculum for Computing and our best selling (Educational Resources Awards nominated) series of Computational Thinking puzzles help pupils independently practise the skills they learn in their computing lessons.

Grab yourself a treat with this free Shrove Tuesday resource.

Visit www.icompute-uk.com for more free themed lesson plans and resources to support teaching primary computing.

Ofsted Inspection Framework: for Computing Subject Leaders

By Liane O'Kane December 30, 2023 January 11, 2024 Planning, Primary Computing

Inspecting Computing

The Ofsted Inspection Framework [3] came into effect in September 2019. With the emphasis on ‘offering a curriculum that is broad, rich and deep’, here I take a look at its implications for Computing Subject Leaders.

Download my full guide on how iCompute can help your school demonstrate a quality computing education through the ‘Three I’s’ and during a Deep Dive.

Christmas Computing Get Jolly Good at Coding

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By Liane O'Kane December 4, 2023 January 11, 2024 Computational Thinking, Primary Computing, Themed Activities

Free Christmas Computing Resources

Here’s at iCompute Headquarters there’s nothing we like more than creating Christmas themed resources. I’ve been having a great time designing and developing new lesson plans, tutorials and programs for this year’s festive season.

My latest offering is an absolute Christmas cracker! A coding tutorial for Microsoft Kodu. Kodu is helping Santa deliver presents on Christmas Eve but needs your pupil’s help coding him to deliver the presents to the right houses. I’ve made a Kodu tutorial for your pupils to use that will guide them through the coding process before letting them get on with completing the activity and then having some festive fun by making it their own.

Get the lesson plan & tutorial

Another free Christmas computing resource helps your pupils get jolly good at problem solving using key computational thinking skills such as abstraction, decomposition, generalisation and pattern spotting.

Computational thinking lies at the heart of the National Curriculum for Computing and our best selling (ERA and BETT nominated) schemes of work support schools teach it creatively and well.

Grab yourself a gift with our free stuff for Christmas. Visit www.icompute-uk.com for more free Christmas themed lesson plans and resources to support teaching primary computing.

Click to download

How to thrive during an Ofsted Deep Dive for Computing

By Liane O'Kane December 3, 2023 January 11, 2024 Primary Computing

Ofsted will be “deep diving” into a selection of subjects during their inspections with the “curriculum at the heart of inspection” focusing on curriculum intent, implementation and impact. I’ve previously written an article on this called inspecting computing for computing subject leaders. Now, with the benefit of feedback from schools using iCompute who’ve undergone a deep dive for computing – and widely published Aide Memoir and Inspector subject training guidance provided by Ofsted – I explore what a deep dive for computing looks like with the aim of helping prepare computing leads.

You can download a copy of my comprehensive guide to the Ofsted Framework and Ofsted Deep Dives for Computing at the end of this post. It’s been updated to include dozens of Ofsted Deep Dive questions our schools have been asked and the school friendly questions suggested by Ofsted along with details of how iCompute helps schools answer them.

Ofsted Deep Dive for Computing questions — Comprehensive set of Ofsted Deep Dive for Computing Questions

A Christmas Coding Lesson with PRIMM

By Liane O'Kane December 1, 2023 January 11, 2024 Primary Computing, Resources, Themed Activities

Christmas Gift Catch

Regular readers will know that I’ve previously created a 6 week coding unit for pupils aged 9-11 using BitsBox. Bitsbox uses a simplified version of Javascript, and provides tools that enable pupils to develop their own apps.

It’s a great stepping stone from the blocks-based languages and environments your pupils may have already mastered (E.g. Scratch, App Inventor, Tynker etc) on to text-based languages.

PRIMM

I’ve been researching pedagogies to support computing mastery and PRIMM is a programming pedagogy developed by Dr Sue Sentence and the Computing Education team at Kings College London based on the notion that its difficult to become successful at writing code if you cannot read it.

I have created a Christmas themed step-by-step lesson plan that uses Bitsbox and I’m using the PRIMM approach for teaching programming.

PRIMM stands for Predict | Run | Investigate | Modify | Make. The approach enables teachers to support pupils by giving them some code that they first understand and then build upon towards making their own.

It’s a great way to structure a lesson and think it’ll make a real difference to those pupils who have difficulty understanding some programming concepts.

Christmas Coding Activity Plan — Click to access the plan & resources]

Feel free to download this lesson and try PRIMM in your own classroom.

Use the PRIMM programming approach to develop a program from a Christmas gift catching game into a new game

Challenge your pupils to design algorithms and program the game using a text-based programming language, variables and functions.

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As usual, lots of opportunities for differentiation. For instance, less able pupils could use pupil support cards (see support resource which is included in the pack) and/or write a more simple version. Your more able pupils could:

change the speed, direction and size falling presents
make the game multi-player and multi-level
complete the game to a time
create Game Over functions
create sound tracks and jingles for the app

Ideas for differentiation, extension and enrichment are included in the lesson plan. Lots of opportunities to be inspired and get creative.

Check out my other coding lesson that uses BitsBox at https://www.icompute-uk.com/news/coding-apps/

Find out more about PRIMM and the research at https://icomp.site/primm

Explore computing pedagogy further aqt: