Trotts Hill Primary School and Nursery
At Trotts Hill we aim to ensure that all children become digitally literate in this ever changing technical world.
Our curriculum is designed around four key areas, as outlined in the National Curriculum, computer science, information technology, digital literacy and online safety. The combination of these areas allows children to gain skills to develop ideas that they are able to use throughout their lives in a digital world and leave primary school computer literate. It is our intention to enable children to find, explore, analyse and present information using technology creatively.
Staff are encouraged to model positive use of technology and ensure their lessons are accessible to all pupils. We want children to be fluent in a range of tools and hope that by the end of Upper Key Stage 2, children will be independent and confident to apply their technological knowledge.
We are highly motivated to ensure that all children will leave Trotts Hill with a strong and secure understanding of how to stay safe online.
Online Safety
Internet Guidance for Parents
Please read the guidelines for parents. The guidelines are linked to different games and apps.
This is a really useful link which shows a parents' guide to protecting young children from harmful content. The link specifically focuses on the game 'Roblox' which many of our pupils are using. Please read the webpage to ensure that your child is keeping safe while using the internet and the ways in which you can help. Link below:
Please read this terms Internet Safety Newsletter.
Please read this term's online safety newsletter for parents and carers. There is some useful information with age guidance for smartphone usages, ABC guidelines to help you manage your child's online safety, gaming tips and advice on using chatrooms.
Digital Leaders 2025-2026
These are the new digital leaders for this school year. They have an important job to maintain internet safety, look after the laptops and share SMART rules with their classes.
Year 3 started their learning about spreadsheets. They explored 'Advanced Mode' in 2 Calculate. They merged cells, added sheets, renamed sheets and added columns.
The children all received an email from Mrs Chumbley asking them a couple of questions. The children had to open the email and reply
Year 4 have been learning about photo editing. We have talked about the reliability of photographs we see online, in magazines and in advertising and talked about the dangers of being influenced by unrealistic images that show a distorted reality that can be unhealthy. We had fun cloning and erasing elements of photographs before learning how to combine pictures to make interesting, comical and fantastical images.
The children read a text about mythical creatures and grouped the information. They designed and created a database, deciding on whether validation tools such as a menu of choices should be used.
This half term, the digital leaders have run a coding club for children in year 2 to year 6. They have learnt new coding skills and been able to complete different challenges using these skills.
A word from some of the children:
Millie – I’ve enjoyed playing different coding games and really liked that on the last week we got to choose whichever coding game we wanted to play. I like making the fish move in different directions.
Daniel – I think coding is fun and I’ve loved coming every week.
A work from some of the digital leaders:
Leo – It’s been so fun being able to help other people with coding.
Charlotte – I’ve enjoyed helping people and I like when I help them and they are able to go onto harder challenges afterwards.
Purple Mash
We use the Purple Mash platform (amongst others) to support our learning across the whole school.
The children used 2Connect to create a branching database using Yes/No questions.
The children used a counting tool in a spreadsheet to investigate the probability of results when throwing many dice.
The children programmed a microcontroller with two outputs to make a light flash and a motor rotate for a specified number of times.
This half term, Year 4 having been learning how to use 2Logo. They began by inputting simple instructions such as FD, BK, RT and LT. They then used this to help them create different shapes and letters. The children then learnt how to use the REPEAT command to help make shapes. A square can be made using REPEAT 4 [FD 5 RT 90]. The children then used these commands to create their own shapes and patterns.
Archie - Repeating a square makes a circle pattern!
Alma - I've made a flower pattern by repeating a square and a triangle.
Year 3 are learning how to use PowerPoint presentations. They have successfully learnt how to add and change text. In this lesson the children were adding an extra slide and adding pictures.
Year 3 were learning about computer connections and networks today. Firstly, they explored their own connections and then became computers and sent messages around the classroom. They compared how efficiently it was sending a message with and without a network switch.
Today, Year 3, learnt how to include timers in their coding activities.
This week we celebrated Safer Internet Day in class and in assembly. The theme for 2024 is ‘Inspiring change? Making a difference, managing influence and navigating change online’.
All classes reviewed how to stay safe online and watched a video of top tips produced by the Digital Leaders. We also looked at how technology has evolved over the years (there was life before iphones!). Finally all classes discussed how the internet can be used for positive reasons and talked about charities and being kind online.
We looked at how technology has evolved over the year and then made videos which could promote a cause online, using the internet to inspire.
