At our school, digital skills are developed progressively from Primary 1 to Primary 7 through meaningful, engaging and cross-curricular learning experiences. Using the Just2Easy suite, children take part in a wide range of activities including digital writing, animation, coding, presenting information, creating numeracy bar graphs and handling data. These opportunities help pupils build confidence in using technology to support their learning in creative and purposeful ways.

Our digital learning is guided by the 5E’s of Using ICT: Explore, Express, Exchange, Evaluate and Exhibit. Through this approach, children learn to explore new tools and ideas, express their understanding in different ways, share and discuss their work with others, improve what they create and celebrate their achievements. In doing so, they develop important skills such as communication, creativity, problem-solving, organisation and independence.

The use of Chromebooks and iPads further enhances learning by giving children access to a range of digital tools that support different styles of learning. Chromebooks help pupils develop writing, research and presentation skills, while iPads encourage creativity through activities such as photography, recording, drawing and animation. Together, these technologies help our children become confident, capable and responsible digital learners, well prepared for life in an increasingly digital world.

At Macosquin Primary School, we love using micro:bits to explore the world of coding in a fun, creative and engaging way. The children have enjoyed creating projects such as beating heart animations, sound-responsive disco lights, magic dice, emoji faces and programmes that display their names. These activities help to develop important skills including problem-solving, logical thinking, creativity, debugging and resilience.  Using micro:bits also helps build confidence with technology and encourages children to experiment, persevere and enjoy learning through hands-on digital experiences. We also have an after-school ICT club, where children enjoy further developing their digital skills and exploring coding in even greater depth.

Seesaw is a wonderful app which empowers pupils of any age to independently document what they are learning at school.  At Macosquin our pupils capture learning with photos and videos of their work, or by adding digital creations.  Work can be shared with classmates, parents or published to a class blog.  Seesaw gives pupils a real audience for their work and offers parents a personalised window into their child's learning.  We have had wonderful feedback from both parents and children about the benefits of this app and the positive impact it has had on their child' s confidence and in sharing their learning at home. 

As a school, we ensure that we educate both children and parents about the safe use of computers and related technologies both within school and at home.  On Internet Safety Day we held an information evening for parents about e-safety and how to keep their child safe online and on mobile technologies, to ensure all messages they send and receive are kind and safe. 

Within school we held an internet safety assembly and each class also did an appropriate lesson to reiterate the importance of Internet safety and cyber bullying. We feel it is vital to teach children about appropriate online behaviours and to think carefully about situations to help them stay safe when using the Internet and mobile devices both in school and at home. 

Please remember the 5 Smart rules when using the Internet and mobile phones. 

SAFE

MEETING

ACCEPTING

RELIABLE

TELL

http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/downloads/cn_A2posterPRIMARY.pdf