St Edmund’s Nursery School/Children’s Centre

Our Aims

To raise standards of attainment in ICT by providing a structure to children’s early development of ICT competencies so that practitioners can more effectively:

• Plan for progress
• Monitor and assess progress

To raise standards of attainment through ICT by providing a framework for ICT across all six areas of learning in the Foundation Stage.

To recognise that young children need to find out by doing; they need to explore their learning environment, to explore their ideas, to observe and interact with others, to play and learn from their experiences.

To develop an ICT rich learning environment and un-planned, open-ended provision.

To embrace the principles and aims of the Curriculum Guidance for the Foundation Stage.

To captivate children’s natural curiosity and enthusiasm to learn about and from ICT whilst preparing them for a good start in Primary School.

The Planning Process
There are ICT opportunities in:

• Continuous provision e.g. computer/s and appropriate software based in the children’s daily learning environment, as well as a range of other ICT devices in various areas of provision such as a cassette player in the listening area
• Enhancements, e.g. calculator added to role play shop
• Focused provision, e.g. adult shows children how to use Roamer, new software, how to drag and drop.

Curriculum Planning Model ICT

Focused Activities
Curriculum through focused discussion and group activities
Practitioner planned and led activities with clear ICT objectives to develop children’s skills or to provide specific learning experience
(1:1 or group)

Enhanced Provision
Curriculum through resources stimulus, interactive displays, visits and visitors
ICT related activities that may develop from focused activities or teaching opportunities that may arise from continuous provision
Practitioner intervention predominant

Continuous Provision
Curriculum through high quality indoor and outdoor learning environment
ICT resources which are continually accessible to children in their independent play, allowing skills and understanding to be rehearsed and developed without planned adult intervention

Key Learning Opportunities

• To be able to operate computer programmes using a mouse
• To correctly and safely use and care for ICT equipment and resources
• To identify word processing as a tool for mark making/writing
• To give simple instructions to a computer using the mouse and keyboard
• To change and select computer programmes from the computer hard drive
• To recognise and name key parts of the computer
• To give simple instructions to ICT devices – programmable toys etc.
• To manipulate and change images and/or text on computer screen
• To print out pictures, images and text

ICT in the six areas of learning

Personal, social and emotional development

• Through ICT children frequently face problem solving opportunities. Being in control of their own success along with immediate positive feedback provided by ICT devices and most software, builds personal confidence.
• Activities are often co-operative. Children are highly motivated to develop personal and social skills such as sharing and turn taking, shared enjoyment and taking up the suggestions of others.
• Through teaching children correct handling of ICT equipment, children begin to develop an understanding of shared responsibility, a respect for things, a sensitivity to the needs and views of each other, a sense of justice and of right and wrong.
• In selecting software carefully, the practitioner can aim to broaden children’s cultural awareness and experiences.

Communication, language and literacy

• Good software offers children access to a wide range of stories, rhymes and songs in a new way. Many programmes are interactive and allow the child to explore all the possibilities.
• ICT can provide children with motivation to make up their own stories e.g. clip art, child’s own graphics, downloaded graphics, digital camera. It can also provide support for children who have stories to tell but lack the skills to write e.g. tape recorded own stories or responses, practitioner acting as scribe on keyboard. Many programmes develop sequencing skills, based on familiar pieces of text, such as nursery rhymes.
• Children’s understanding of the conventions of print is powerfully reinforced through ICT. Word processing reinforces left to right, top to bottom conventions. Talking books develop an understanding of how pictures and text support each other.
• A number of software packages are designed to help children link sound to letters.
• Writing for different purposes can be much more meaningful when using ICT. Instructional writing, labels and captions lend to combining text and graphics and to experimenting with style and size of font.

Mathematical development

• ICT packages to develop children’s concept of pattern and sequence can be useful in reinforcing learning which takes place during the many practical opportunities to create their own patterns, recreate given patterns, recognise patterns and continue a pattern or sequence. Packages to work on sorting skills similarly help reinforce ideas and concepts developed in practical activity.
• There are many ICT activities which help develop number recognition and concepts (often progressing to more/less and simple addition/subtraction. The Roamer is very versatile in providing reason to use numbers as well as developing directional concepts.

Knowledge and Understanding of the World

• Observing, exploring and finding out about their world involves children in a process, often open-ended, which rarely results in an end product. Practitioners often record children’s experiences photographically.
• With a digital camera, downloaded snapshots of work in progress can be annotated on screen for children to add captions to or can be printed off for children to write or draw onto directly. Video allows children to revisit experiences with others if left running. Parents/carers are able to show their interest in the activities their child has been involved in and a starting point for quality interactions/dialogues is provided. Children can watch the video with each other, often providing a running commentary, as the experience is re-lived.
• A cassette recorder can be used by children to verbally record their observations or to express a response “on location.” Again the recorded cassette later becomes a stimulus for interaction with others.
• Encyclopaedia programmes, non-fiction talking books and the internet can be explored for any one area of current interest or investigation.

Physical development
Using ICT devices requires fine-motor and hand-eye co-ordination.

• The devices available for children to use in their spontaneous play e.g. mobile phone, will encourage very young children to acquire the dexterity observed in the adults around them. This offers practice without fear of failure and their confidence will grow as children develop familiarity with the range of ICT devices continuously available to them.
• Using a new computer programme has a high novelty value and children will be highly motivated to exploit it independently. Practitioners should give careful consideration to the match between the child’s development and the degree of dexterity demanded by the device or software: an ability to use the mouse to click an icon will be challenged by a programme requiring the user to drag and drop.

Creative development

• A learning environment which is ICT rich, will help broaden children’s imagination when engaged in role-play, dance, image making, music making and story making activities.
• There are some excellent painting and drawing programmes which, with a colour printer, support creative use.
• There are music making programmes allowing very young children success with simple composing.
• Multi-media programmes, which also provide sound, add a further dimension to learning, so that as the child creates an image, his/her decisions and actions are audible thus involving three senses – visual, auditory and tactile.

Permanent Resources

Real ICT: Computer, printer, keyboard, cassette player/recorder and headphones, programmable toys, remote control car

Imaginative and investigate play: Telephone, microwave, washing machine, digital camera, oven

Software: See separate list. Range and variety of blank and pre-recorded audio tapes

Resource organisation

Permanent ICT areas with computers sited at child height – some computers with headphones for individual play and some without for co-operative play

Programmes stored on hard disk and a selection of CD roms

Cassette player/recorder and headphones on low table surrounded by low chairs

Display boards for children’s pictures, images, writing and photographs of children using ICT equipment

Imaginative play items in structured play area

Adults support and challenge children’s thinking through observations, suggestion intervention and modelling and use appropriate vocabulary to question and elicit thinking/responses

Intended experiences

Engage in attention and listening

Select own computer/ICT activities

Communicate what s/he sees and hears to describe, compare and comment

Create stories where adult acts as scribe

Count, order, sort and match

Use ICT to aid learning across the curriculum areas

Engage in independent and co-operative activity

Respond positively to images and sounds of other cultures

Solve problems

Produce and display own work mark making/early writing skills

Explore and investigate

Turn taking

Listen/respond to new and modelled language

Appropriate vocabulary

Mouse, keyboard, printer, screen, escape button, arrow keys, space bar, letter keys, return key

Menu and select buttons (mouse)

Positional language e.g. over, under, behind, on top of, next to, nearby, far away

Colour, shape and size language

Comparative language

Predicting what will happen if and when

Questioning…how? what? why? and where?

Number and order language

Language relating to sound and sound sources

Language relating to emotions and feelings

Action words

Classifying objects etc.

Adult modelled language