Lessons are sequenced from Years 1 to 6 to ensure their difficulty gradually increases as children learn more programming concepts and the functions of different command blocks over time. This is clearly outlined in the 'Computer Science - Programming' strand of both the Computing attainment expectations progression document and the knowledge organisers, which show the expected knowledge, skills and understanding children should know.

Children are encouraged to use their Parkfield value of RESILIENCE when feeling challenged doing their programming work and prompted to use their 5Bs before asking for adult support. This could be: using logical thinking to determine which commands are best to solve a problem, deciding which is the most efficient way to combine commands together (e.g. using repetition), tweaking components (e.g. design elements or values in code to make a game easier/harder to complete) or attempting to fix mistakes so code runs how it should. To ensure that all children learn and practice debugging, every programming lesson includes a pre-prepared extract of code which pupils are asked to identify errors in and explain (to their partner or to the whole class) how it could be fixed.

Through yearly repeated practise of following this cycle of increasingly complex block coding encounters over about ten of the Computing lessons each year, along with completing an online, low-stakes retrieval quiz at the start of each lesson, our pupils develop a strong and secure knowledge of common programming procedures and methods which they then begin to use automatically/fluently over time. This reduces their cognitive load and allows them to engage successfully in complex tasks and become programming 'experts'. 

The final programming projects in Year 6 offer pupils the chance to both 'show-off' and extend their taught knowledge and skills:

• Firstly, they are asked to create a program for an imaginary, specific audience using as many different design elements and command blocks as possible to demonstrate their programming capability. This is followed up by them completing a full write-up of their work over several slides in a presentation, explaining how they followed the different parts of the Computing systems lifecycle. This is similar to the expectations of secondary school pupils, in readiness for their transition and future learning.

• Secondly, they are challenged to create several mini online, fun games in the style of summer fair stalls, simply being given algorithm descriptions and simple design sketches allowing them to experience using some of the more unusual, lesser-used command blocks.